Public service workers who are allowed to work from home need a pay cut, not a pay raise

Don't get me wrong - public servants need a raise that at least keeps up with inflation, as does every other worker in the land. But this "work from home" dawdle has to be called out. Certain people had the option of working from home when society was attacked by a deadly virus that was allegedly going to end civilization if we didn't mask up, stay home, and get those safe and effective vaccines. Most people, the "front line workers," never had the option. They just kept going to work. They were heroes for a few months. We so appreciated them we vowed they'd soon have paid sick days, full-time hours, pensions, a living wage, and a partridge in a pear tree. That's all over now. Not the pandemic - that's still chugging along quietly, reaping a daily harvest of the infirm elderly. We've just done away with all the masking and distancing. We're apparently following a different science now. And all those promises to the front line heroes? Long forgotten. Meanwhile, the laptop labourers who got the work-from-home card are feeling their oats. They deserve a raise just like everyone else in the public service. Do they? When you work from home you save on child care, commuting, parking, clothes, and a bunch of peripheral stuff. Child care alone can be a $1500 a month saving. And look at the quality of life. Instead of getting up at 6 to be at work by 9, you set your alarm to 8:45 and you'll be at work on time. You can spend all day in your pjs unless you have to pull on a shirt for a zoom meeting. You can have multiple other windows open on your laptop while allegedly working. The only expense that'll go up is your booze bill, because by 10am... well it's happy hour somewhere. Other than that, I'm with my PSAC brothers and sisters all the way.

Go Leafs Go!

For the first time since 2004 the Leafs have survived round one of playoff action, and for the first time in about as long, I watched the game on Hockey night in Canada. Looks to me like the sports gambling industry has taken over the joint. Don Cherry's side-kick is still running the intermissions, but the betting adverts have been so seamlessly integrated it's hard to tell them from official content. Another thing I don't remember seeing is corporate logos on hockey gear. If a helmet said Bauer on it, it was because Bauer made the helmet. Now it seems any outfit with the cash can advertise their wares on hockey sweaters... the dairy farmers' milk marketing board, for example. As for the product on the ice, I found it dizzying to be bombarded non-stop with ever-changing advertisements flashing on the boards. The game itself almost seems an afterthought. Job one for the owners is to wring every possible penny of revenue out of their teams. Unlimited advertising, legal betting, and extorting taxpayer money for new arenas by threatening to move the team are all income-maximizing strategies. Kinda makes me miss Harold Ballard.

PM Fluffy jets off to New York to impress global action takers and impact makers while public services in Canada grind to a halt

Canada continues its inexorable quest for "shithole country" status. We will not be denied! Justin took a well-deserved break from mis-ruling his country to preen before an adoring global audience at the "Global Citizen NOW" shindig in New York City. Never heard of them, but according to their website they are action takers and impact makers. They are funded by the usual A-list tax-exept billionaire-owned "progressive" foundations. Justin's base. Meanwhile, things are getting downright grotty here in the Great White North. The public service is on strike. They've been offered a contract that is a de facto 5% wage reduction. Fluffy says the government can't afford a fair settlement. But we're up to $8 billions on the Ukraine file. How's that going?

Trump endorses Tucker Carlson White House bid, will run as VP

I was heading up Peninsula way to see my old pal, semi-retired shaman Wilbur Manytroubles, who lives just off reserve on the escarpment north of Wiarton. Wilbur has a God-given gift of divining the future in everything from tea leaves to chicken gizzards. My friend Sue keeps a few hens in the back yard, and I knew she was at work, so I stopped by and stuffed one of her leghorns in a pillow case and off I went. While Mrs. Manytroubles was roasting up the bird, Wilbur was sizing up the innards. This is what he told me: Tucker will seek the GOP nomination; Trump will support him and be his VP; Biden will be decimated in November '24; the Christian Fascists Chris Hedges has been warning us about will take over America... OK. I've heard all this before. I ask Wilbur, hey man, does it say if the secular fascists are gonna slide over to make room for the Christian fascists? Wilbur fondles the chicken parts a long moment and finally tells me the signals are getting kinda weak and he's gonna need another chicken... Damn!

AngloAmerican establishment finally slaps some sense into wayward Rupert Murdoch

Revenge of the Deep State. Here's what it looks like when the Deep Staters yank the chain of one of their own who got too big for his billionaire britches. First, here's a $750 million fine for suggesting our elections aren't on the up and up. And unless you want to find out what real pain feels like, we suggest you dump that Tucker fucker too. He's still giving air time to that communist agitator Glenn Greenwald and a whole lot of other Putin stooges. How else do you explain what's going on? It's the Deep State, the establishment, the aristocracy, the permanent governing class, flexing their muscles. The Murdoch empire is falling into line. Which they've more or less been all along, but Carlson was obviously pushing the envelope, associating the Fox brand with treasonous transgressions like sticking up for Assange or allowing Greenwald on our airwaves. Off with his head!

Why Canada's "inadequate" defence spending won't get it kicked out of NATO

The CBC has a scary story on view about how our NATO allies may soon tire of Canada’s reluctance to ramp up military spending to 2% of GDP. As Donald Trump pointed out a few years ago, neither Canada nor many other NATO members reach the 2% threshold. It’s big news across our media that, according to recent leaks, PM Fluffy has allegedly told allies Canada will never meet its funding obligations. That’s led to much tut-tutting from defence industry funded think tanks like the Council of Defence Associations. Unsurprisingly, they’re gung-ho for more military spending! Why? Well, apparently we’re not standing close enough to our allies in the fight for human rights and democracy playing out in Ukraine. They expect more from us. They do? According to NATO, in 2022, only seven of 30 member states met the 2% target. That’s 3/4ths of the entire club that didn't! Canada is in good company. In fact, the freeloaders make a robust majority! When three-quarters of your club are outcasts, you’ve got a problem! Trump’s problem, shared by CBC and Globe & Mail “journalists” today, is that USA is paying twice as much to secure freedom and democracy as the rest of NATO combined. Given that NATO has been reduced to an arm of US foreign policy, I think the Americans should pay 100% of the costs. The vassal states are doing their part by giving NATO a gloss of multilateralism. Why should they pay cash on top of giving up their sovereignty?

US-NATO solidarity is fraying rapidly

Every time NATO SecGen Jumpy Jens gets near a TV camera, he starts a’twitchin’ and a’twerkin’ as he proclaims; “Putin vant less NATO. Instead, he get more NATO.” True. The formidable military prowess of Finland, population similar to Greater Toronto Area, will undoubtedly shift the balance of power in the global show-down between the alleged democracies and the Bad Guys. Or not. We’re up to four NATO states banning imports of Ukrainian grain. Why? Because all that Ukrainian grain that was going to feed starving Africa mostly ended up in neighbouring states instead, driving down farm-gate prices across Europe. Poland is the most vocal champion of Ukraine in the mainstream media. In reality, they’re cutting off welfare payments to Ukrainian refugees and banning grain imports. There are still those in Poland who recall the “solidarity” of Ukrainian nationalists in the WW2. Their solidarity was with Nazi Germany, not with Poland. Hundreds of thousands of Poles paid the price with their lives. Meanwhile, it becomes increasingly obvious that the glorious Ukrainian victory we’ve been promised for over a year ain’t ever going to happen. The combined industrial capacity of the NATO nations can’t keep Ukraine supplied with heavy weapons or the rockets, missiles, and artillery shells required to effectively counter Russia. You’d think the masterminds behind this war would have done some basic math calculations before they goaded their Ukrainian flunkies into it. The general consensus, including at the NYT and WaPo, is that Ukrainian fire-power is outmatched anywhere from 4:1 to 10:1. That’s why it’s ludicrous to imagine that Russia is suffering more casualties. The side that delivers 50,000 artillery shells per day will inevitably inflict more casualties if their opponents can only manage 5,000. The sad truth is that Ukraine’s “allies” can’t even deliver those 5,000. Until 2028, after some new factories are built. Hang tight, Zelensky! We’ll have everything you need in five years or so! Here on the home front, I see where several dozen worthies from the upper echelon of our military-political-media complex have come out to demand that PM Fluffy get serious about defending democracy. They want tens of billions of new spending on US war toys, and a major ramp-up of bellicose rhetoric against “our adversaries.” It’s the least we can do to “stand with our allies,” otherwise known as following Washington’s instructions. Today a minor Putin critic in Russia got a prison sentence of 25 years for treason. Sure, it’s a trumped-up charge and they’re making an example of him, but here’s my take-away. Minutes after the verdict, the UK, US, and Canadian ambassadors to Russia stood on the courtroom steps, in Russia, denouncing the verdict. If the situation was reversed, how long do you think the ambassadors of Russia, China, and Iran would be allowed to play to TV cameras in Ottawa? I’m beginning to wonder if maybe they’ve got more freedom of speech in Russia than we do here!

CBC has hissy-fit as Twitter labels the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation "government funded"

So is CBC government funded? YES!!! To the tune of $1.2 billions per year! So what's the pout about? Well, according to the bigs at CBC, just because they're government funded doesn't mean they're not totally balanced and objective and independent... Funny thing; that's exactly what they say at Sputnik and RT! Frankly, I don't think this Twitter "pause" will last long. The knobs at CBC are addicted to Twitter, in the clinical sense. They can no more quit Twitter than I can quit beer and pot.

About the dude who brings his poodles to the dog park in a Cadillac XLR

We generally take Big-Lips Bruno to the Owen Sound dog park six days a week, weather permitting. Monday to Friday me and Bruno head over there right after we drop off the Farm Manager at her day job. On Saturday we head into town to pick up some gluten-free goodies at Boon Bakery, have breakfast at the always-excellent European Bakery, and then do a few laps around the dog park on the way home. On Sunday, we head into Wiarton for the weekly shop at Foodland, and then we check out the Wiarton dog park. That's where we keep running into a dude who delivers his two poodles in a Cadillac XLR. They are remarkabley uncouth by poodle standards. He parks his car, does one lap with his dogs, which gives them just enough time for a shit and some gratuitious harrassment of other dogs, and off they go. The Cadillac SLR is a relatively rare specimen based on the Corvette. Goes like stink, which I suspect inspires the poodles to commit mayhem on arrival. Today we saw them with fresh haircuts. That's why we finally realized they were poodles. Before, they were just random hairballs racing around the dog park. We even found out they have names; Wag and Wag. Yup, both dogs have the same name.

I puked on the shoes of my idol

I used to wait for the school bus at the corner of Marden Road and the Elmira Road. A black Ford Galaxie would swing around that corner every morning with a great cacaphony of squealing tires and squalling dual exhausts. The guy behind the wheel and behind this ruckus had one arm hanging out the window and a ciggy hanging off his lips. To my fourteen year old sensibilities, he was the epitome of cool. Fast forward five years. My idol is now my co-worker at General Electric. He's got a little bungalow on a country road fifteen minutes from the plant. He's also got a couple of kids and a wife and a truly awesome drinking regimin. We played on the same rec league hockey team where it was standard practice to drink on the way to the rink, in the dressing room, and on the bench. The general consensus was you couldn't actually do game time with a drink in your hand, but anything else was fair game. I found that quite an adventure given that our ice time was 8:oo o'clock Sunday morning. Buddy had a billiard table in the basement of that bungalow, where we shot pool and drank beer all night and pissed in the laundry sink. Life was good! Fast forward another ten years. I've graduated the Homewood Health Centre's world famous addiction treatment program. Twice! You wouldn't believe the famous names that have passed through that joint, but I digress. I've got a nice house on a fine street a half block from Exhibition Park. I've got a university professor on one side, a mafia boss on the other, and an othodontist across the street. One summer day I heard through the grapevine that Buddy was on a team at a softball tournament going on at Exhibition Park. Figured I'd walk over and check it out, and maybe hook up with my old pal. Found him in the beer tent, of all places. His team had already been eliminated, so we sat in the beer tent catching up for a few hours. I was a bit out of practice, and found myself getting whoozey. Whoozey to the point that I had misgivings about the approximately 300 yard wobble home. What if I had to puke out my guts in front of the professors house? Mafia bosses and orthodontists don't exactly smile on that kind of shit either. So after bidding farewell, I ducked under the table for a half second and puked all over the shoes of my idol. Walked away refreshed and rejuvenated. Don't know that Buddy ever noticed.

Biden gives up on Zelensky, will focus on defeat of communist China

I suspect the days of Sean Penn interviews with the reincarnation of Churchill have come to an end. After all, the “just a few more months and a few more billions and weapons weapons weapons” routine is getting kinda stale. Perhaps Sy Hersh put the last nail in the coffin with his expose of Zelensky & company corruption, to the tune of at least 400 millions. That number strikes me as being on the low side. How could world-class grifters like the Ukrainian oligarchs who own Zelensky pull a mere 400 millions out of 100 billion+ in financial assistance? Be that as it may, the World Cop in DC is clearly signaling that the real enemy isn’t that gas station masquerading as a country, but those commies in China. The pivot is real. America’s ass-kissers in Ottawa are all aboard with giving the commies a wake-up call. If them commies continue to trample on the rights of their own people, the forces of righteousness will have to show them what’s what and who’s the boss. This is where I lose the thread. The forces of righteousness spent twenty years and untold trillions bringing peace and democracy and human rights and freedom to Afghanistan. We know how that ended. That ended with the true believers falling off the side of USAF transports ferrying their American masters to safety. We’re now in the process of distancing ourselves from our disaster in Ukraine. By the way, that’s a disaster that’s brought nothing but sunny days to the shareholders in the big US defence contractors. “Disaster” is a relative concept. But I digress. After the Afghanistan disaster and the disaster unfolding in Ukraine, it’s perfectly logical that the Nations of Virtue put China in the cross-hairs…

Canada commits to "whatever it takes" to ensure Ukraine victory

I watched the joint presser PM Fluffy and his Ukrainian counterpart held in Ottawa today, on the occasion of PM Denys Shmyhal’s visit. Everybody knows the name of the president, but nobody knows who Shmyhal is. He’s the Prime Minister of Ukraine! The press conference was truly cringe-worthy. Like we’ve been hearing for over a year, just a few more months and a few more billions, and Putin is toast… A few hours later, I click on CBC News and there’s no mention of the visit or Fluffy’s latest declaration that Canada loves Ukraine so much we’re in for whatever it takes for as long as it takes. Maybe that’s because what it would take is another couple hundred battle tanks, a few dozen F-16s, and several million rounds of artillery shells. Canada has exactly zero of any of that to contribute to Ukraine’s defense of the rules-based world order, as we like to call the American Empire. Maybe somebody at CBC read up on those leaks the top US propaganda organs, the NYT and Bezo’s WP, have been flogging to death. They seem to think Ukraine is toast… you don’t win a war when enemy artillery has a 10:1 firepower advantage. Fortunately for Ukraine, they’ve got PM Fluffy committing to full spectrum destruction of Putin’s vile dictatorship. Even the nabobs at CBC are beginning to smell the bullshit.

The buzzards are back

Back to Ontario from their winter sojourn in the Carolinas. Wonder if the roadkill is as abundant there as it is here. They're doing high circles over the barn. We had a few roosting there last year. Bird migration is quite a marvel when you think about it. Doesn't matter if it's geese or buzzards or robins. They go south for the winter and come home in the spring. They've been doing it for millenia. Even more remarkable are the hummingbird and butterfly migrations. We see hummingbirds at their feeders all summer long. They operate like miniature attack helicopters, chasing each other away from the feeders. Hard to imagine these tiny buzz-bombs making it all the way to Mexico for winter, but what's even more amazing is the monarch butterflies do the same. The slightest gust of wind throws a butterfly off course, yet they always arrive at their destination, no matter how many hurricanes they have to fly through to get there. The hummingbirds and butterflies have yet to arrive for their summer stay, but the buzzards are back!

While Paris is on fire, President Macron is in China begging Xi to call off Putin

Shouldn’t Macron be tending to the mess he has at home? It’s a funny thing about these so-called democracies that are fighting the good fight against autocracy. We are getting a lot of that nonsense in Canada. Our Ukraine tab is up to eight billions by now. Is everything in Canada so hunky-dory that we can afford to piss away that kind of money on Ukraine? To say nothing of the financial commitments demanded of us so we can “stand with our allies.” That’s weasel-speak for “following orders from Democracy Central; the USA.” To that end, we are supposedly buying 88 F-35 fighter jets from the USA. It’s all about the “interoperability,” don’t you know. All us NATO freedom fighters gotta buy the latest over-priced, under-performing, USA military gadgets. Nevermind that the F-35, after being in the air almost 20 years, has never been combat proven. Ya, the Israelis used one to shoot down a drone, but that ain’t exactly a dog-fight. And you’ll notice there’s no talk whatsoever of giving the world’s most advanced fighter jet to Ukraine as they fight the ultimate death match for democracy. Is that because a) the F-35 is a dud, and exposing it to actual combat would destroy future sales, or b) Ukraine’s hari kari for freedom and democracy was just a load of claptrap, and Biden and all the parrots in the poodle states were just joking around with all that “whatever it takes” bullshit?

Sad Easter story: Gracie the one-eyed snapping turtle fails to find Eternal Life

There's been a story up all of Good Friday on CBC about how Gracie the one-eyed snapper has mysteriously gone missing. According to the story, Gracie is 125 years old. It is alleged that Gracie's disappearance is linked to the in-filling of her native wetland. Well, maybe, but... how long do snapping turtles live? At 125 it seems to me Gracie has had one helluva run. Was she the victim of habitat encroachment, or did she die of old age? So I went on the world wide web to get the lowdown on turtle longevity. Ontarionature.org claims up to 70 years. The University of Michigan biokids.umich.edu claims a mere 35 years in the wild. Wikipedia claims there's been cases of snappers making it to 100. Gracie is 125, and if it wasn't for the greedy bastards despoiling her wetland, she surely would have lived forever? Get outta here!

Two days of rain made the creek rise

We have a bridge across the creek that the original pioneers who cleared this land built to access the pasture on the other side. Normally, we have a good eight feet or so between the bottom of the bridge and the top of the creek. Between the spring melt and two days of rain, we now have the creek flowing over the bridge. I took a walk along the road to the county bridge that crosses the creek a couple hundred yards downstream from my bridge. It was built 100 years later, and doesn't go under water after a mere two day rain. From the bridge I watched a pair of ducks paddling upstream, and a beaver working hard to fortify its lodge against the rising waters. That beaver has the right idea. When the waters are rising, adapt or perish. That's how humankind survived the last billion years of evolution. Indeed, we didn't just survive, we flourished! Some would say we over-flourished. Look around. We're so flourishing we're killing the planet. They say climate catastrophe is imminent. On the other side of the bridge, there's a clump of trees that used to be on the edge of the creek that are now in the middle of a river. There's three buzzards roosting in the higher reaches, watching me. Adapt or perish.