Winter's coming and I got nothing but fear and loathing

And that's a radical departure from my usual winter announcement, which typically comes late November or early December, to the effect that, by golly, looks like winter's back... who knew? Yup, the advent of winter reliably takes me by surprise every year. But here's why things have changed. Last winter was an unexpectedly stiff one, as in way cold and way too much snow. Turned out I was completely unprepared, and it was only the kind intervention of my neighbours John Deere and Massey Ferguson, together with their snowblowers, that got me through. Never again! So I've been keeping an eye out for reliable and affordable snow-clearing tech. I saw a nearly new Suzuki quad with a blade for a whisker under 10k. At least that would give me a 4-wheeler when I'm not clearing snow, but it's not what you need when you get an overnight dump of four feet or more, which is known to happen in these parts. So I've been thinking maybe it makes some sense to have the old Ford 4000 diesel refurbished. It's a 53hp unit from about 50 or 60 years ago, and I have a snowblower for it. But I haven't had a diesel since my VW died, what, 15 years ago? I therefore know nothing about diesels and besides, between my shaky hands and fat fingers I struggle to pick up a wrench, let alone turn one. So this job gotta be farmed out, but whereto? As fate would have it, a few of the kids who went through my shop class went on to become all sorts of trades, including diesel mechanics. I happened to run into one of them at a funeral last week. He works at an iron ore mine on Baffin Island, which is somewhere nearby Santa's place. The company flies him up and back for a three-week rotation, and when he's home he wants to spend time with his three teen boys, not with my derelict tractor. Fortunately, he was able to provide the name of a classmate, who had just left a prominent farm equipment dealership and opened his own biz. Perfect! He'll be looking for work! A few days later I drop by the kids place. The kid is now a middle aged man with a family. There's a float dropping off a hydraulic Skyjack unit as I pull up. There's two or three tractors lining either side of the drive to his shop, and there's a massive high-hoe in the middle of all this stretching out its arms to the sky! Ya... I'm pretty sure Jeff ain't looking for work! Anyway, I'm happy the kids are kicking ass. They seem to have survived my tutelage just fine! But winters coming...

Up a stump with Donald Trump

Remember when USA-Israel unleashed a surprise attack on Iran last year, in the midst of alleged peace talks, which utterly obliterated Iran's nuclear program and military? Remember when USA-Israel unleashed another surprise attack this past February, again against the background of more fake peace talks, murdering the Supreme Leader and much of his extended family, and once again totally obliterating Iran's military? Remember when Mafia Don told the world that he personally would appoint the next Supreme Leader? Well, all of that and oh-so-much-more is already down ye olde memory hole. In fact, USA-Israel has since February obliterated the entirety of Iran's military-industrial complex several more times, to the point they have exhausted their ammo and are now awaiting Iranian retaliation. How such a thing is even conceivable after their non-stop obliteration over many months should raise a few questions, the paramount one being just how brazenly over-the-top the Trump regime's nonstop cavalcade of bullshit would have to get before the American people realize it's time to change the channel.

CBC wants you to know 51st state status a tempting option

Just check out their home page right now. Top headline... Oh my God millions of jobs and trillions of dollars will be gone if our fabulous free trade agreement collapses... what to do what to do... well by golly wouldn't it be great to short-circuit all that nasty trade war shit and just be friends? Frankly, by accepting Trumps offer of statehood, we're just making official what's been de-facto reality at least since John Diefenbaker axed the Avro Arrow. We're looking at a most impressive record of Canadian politicians currying favour in DC while pretending not to. Elbows up and all that silly shit! Obviously the unspoken message that screams out is we gotta save trillions of jobs and millions of... oh, whatever! Just a few stories later we read that over 29,000 Canadians have petitioned our government to kick out the US ambassador. I can certainly think of reasons to do that, but defying the deranged occupant of the White House's threats to annex Canada wouldn't be one of them. Contrasting "threats to annex" to the kidnapping or murder of a head of state makes us look a wee bit unserious. It's hard to get revved up about petty side-shows when we're 100% silent on America's role in the Gaza genocide and we support the unprovoked and illegal war on Iran.

Pot-addled pinko blogger beats Toby Lutke to the nitty-gritty by 12 years!

Yup, it's a true fact, that. Well, except it wasn't actually me who beat the Shopify guy to the insight that poor people are superfluous in a proper democracy, it was California hedgie billionaire Tom Perkins. Being a recovered socialist, I immediately posted the following to the web, where perhaps several dozen people may have noticed.********************** neumann's blog Saturday, February 15, 2014 Three cheers for Tom Perkins! Tom Perkins attracted more than a little ridicule a couple weeks ago with his assertion that the super-rich like him are being persecuted in contemporary America just like Jews were persecuted in Nazi Germany. Hold on a minute. Maybe Tom is the canary in the proverbial coalmine. Maybe some of us are just too blind with envy to see what is really happening. Already we see the super-rich being barred from the boards of directors of major corporations. None of the big banks will any longer be publicly associated with billionaires. They are increasingly shunned even by the very media they own! Rumours abound of private jets ferrying planeloads of billionaires to secret camps deep in the woods. We are told these camps are for "economic summits." Of course they are... just like the Jews of Europe were attending "economic summits" at Belsen and Auschwitz. And what of the future for our beleaguered billionaires? Will enough survive these dark days to achieve, someday, a homeland of their own? Luckily, Tom has an idea that may nip this tide of anti-oligarchism in the bud. The fatal flaw in democracy has always been that a lot of lazy stupid people have this so-called "right to vote." This manifestly unfair feature of US democracy has lead us straight to the current crisis of billionaire-bashing. If Tom's net worth is the equivalent of the combined net worth of 150 million poor Americans, why should they get 150 million votes while he gets one? Tom's plan is brilliant in its simplicity. Every dollar paid in tax would entitle the payer to one vote. That way Tom will no longer be punished for working a million times harder than a million lazy stupid poor people. This plan would also increase government revenue by incentivising many billionaires to pay taxes for the first time! So enough with the ridicule already. Let's give Tom's plans a chance! **************** Don't know what to say... either Toby was scrolling through my blog again and found something he liked, or (probably more likely) he happened to be sharing quality time with Tom at Davos or Aspen recently!

Gonzo hypocrisy; zero journalism

The crap that's showing up on CBC of late is beyond fake news, beyond ridiculous, and beyond even a caricature of actual "news." Here's what I believe lies at the root of the problem. As an occupation, the journalism profession has been shrinking for decades. Since the 1980s something like three-quarters of all mainstream journo jobs have disappeared, the kind of jobs with real salaries, benefits, and career paths. While the jobs disappeared, university journalism programs kept pumping out fresh grads - into a zero jobs economy. That's where the government decided taxing Google and Meta would raise the money required to provide at least temp employment to all these budding journalists. And here we are. A news environment dominated entirely by press releases from activist groups, think tanks, corporations, and govt spokepersons. Where's the "journalism?" Whatever happened to "afflicting the comfortable and comforting the afflicted?" Whatever happened to "speaking truth to power?" I'll tell you what happened. When you come out of Carleton or TMU or any of the others with that shiny new degree, or, God forbid, even a Masters and $100k in student loans, what are you gonna do in that bullshit fake job? Speak truth to power? No way! You'll do everything you can to get a pat on the head and get noticed by power, because the only possible hope you have of ever paying down your student loans and having a life is if you get into a rare paying slot at the Globe or the CBC, and "truth to power" ain't gonna take you very far up that road!

Celebrating small victories

There's a story on view at CBC today; " Na-Me-Res opens its doors to a new complex for unhoused men." I guess that's a good-news bad-news story. The good news is they're getting twenty dudes off the street and into proper housing. The bad news is this program is run by an Indigenous charity and is understandably focused on getting their people off the street. What we need to do is replicate this program x1000 and extend it across the country. The one thing I noticed is the program demands 100% abstinence from its former-addict residents. I'm surprised there hasn't been a civil-rights challenge on that. The way things have evolved over recent years makes public inebreation a basic human right. And if your public intoxication, regardless of cause, causes you to defecate in the flowerbeds in front of City Hall, well, everybody gotta shit, so fuck off with your judgementalism! Anyway, while the story headlines a small victory, it mentions in passing that Toronto is decades behind in its affordable housing goals. Now that we've gotta spend gazillions on fighter jets and warships and submarines, we'll be centuries behind!

Large white supremacist meeting shakes residents of Alberta town

That CBC headline caught my eye this morning. The CBC investigative journalism crew really has its finger on the pulse of what's going on in small-town Alberta. Remember a couple of years ago when they had a sudden surge of personal essays on what it's like to be the only Black trans teen in a small prairie town? Well, aside from empathy, there's not much those teens demand of us. Today's expose is an entirely different kettle of fish. We might feel sorry for that loney kid, but we need to be absolutely outraged about these white supremacists who terrorized a small town! The locals were stunned and shellshocked! Except if you actually read the story, they weren't. In fact, apparently nobody in town was even aware this army of 60+ white supremacists had visited until several weeks after the fact, when CBC brought it to their attention. Only then did the alleged "shellshock" set in. According to Grokepedia, the population of that Alberta hamlet is 58. You'd think they'd notice 60+ nazis in their midst, especially when they were waving banners from the overpass over the highway. The cbc quotes the owner of the general store as saying he had no idea. That's where you buy beer in Millarville... we're supposed to believe over five dozen middle-aged racist white goobers, mostly CAF vets, came to town for a week and didn't buy any beer??? We're in get-the-fuck-outta-here territory with that one! Anyway, I see two plausible explanations for this story. Is it possible those small-town Alberta bumpkins are secret fascist symps? The other possibility is that the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, the NGO 100% funded by our federal government, and whose "research" underpins this CBC story, is desperate to have its funding renewed, and is hoping to scare up some scary headlines.

If Chrystia Freeland is out of politics, why is she making speeches in Taiwan promising we'll protect them from Chinese aggression?

I have two observations about Chrystia's moronic interference in Taiwan-China affairs, and I have to say the only thing stupider than her actual speech is the Globe's coverage thereof. If one were completely ignorant of the last 100 years of China's history with the West, you'd think Chrystia was taking a bold stand for freedom and democracy and all that great stuff, just like when she was schlepping the hapless dumbshit Juan Guaido around the world. What she's really doing is working hard to further the Trump regime's mission to destroy the Trudeau-Nixon era's rapprochement with communist China. That is in itself an unfortunate lapse in good judgement. How is it up to the boss of one of the world's most lavishly funded foundations to pronounce on Taiwan-China relations? But here's where it gets really stupid. I mean, she's telling Taiwan to pick a fight with China, and we, meaning the collective West, will be standing shoulder to shoulder with them, yessiree, with whatever it takes for as long as it takes?... How is that working out for Ukraine?

Former Commander-in-Chief of Ukraine Army admits Russia has defeated NATO

Well, there's an oopsie! That's the exact opposite from the message the NATO vassals were singing in unison at the NATO summit in Ankara recently. "Ukraine has turned the tide!" Anybody who put any stock in that piffle needs to look up General Valerii Zaluznhy's address to the assembled Western ambassadors. Zaluznhy is the guy who oversaw the first half of Ukraine's war before being promoted to the post of ambassador to the UK. I think it's safe to assume the General knows whereof he speaks, unlike the myriad "experts" who have been shovelling blatant NATO propagada our way non-stop since at least 1991. Recall that at the dissolution of the Soviet Union Ukraine was by a good margin the most prosperous province. By the time of the Maidan coup, it's GDP per person had shrivelled to a third of Russias. Zaluznhy knows intimately the entire trajectory of post-Soviet Ukraine. Unlike our FM Anita Anand, who declared last week that "Ukraine has turned the tide," the former C in C of the Ukraine Army claims ain't no tide been turned, nor will there be. Not only has Russia destroyed Ukraine's military, its economy, and its industrial infrastructure, it has effectively demilitarized NATO to boot! But don't take my word for it.

Men of a certain age

Now that I'm solidly ensconced in God's waiting room, just waiting for my number to come up, I've developed a keen eye for the tell-tale signs that moment could be drawing nigh. For instance, maybe a month ago or so I had a mishap coming in the front door. My right foot didn't quite negotiate that first step, causing, in no particular order, broken glass, a deep gash on my arm, and a question mark in my mind about how it's possible to miss a step you've successfully negotiated multiple times per day for the last 20 years. I initially put it down to the fact it was late evening and I'd had a coupla pints and a toke... but that's just a regular day, so it didn't add up. Then, just a week or so later, it happened again! Except this time at 7 am. No beer. No tokes. Just a coffee and a cigarette out on the stoop. Once again, righty didn't quite attain the first step, causing a face-plant, a broken cup, and two rolls of paper towels to mop up the coffee. Obviously, I was having an issue with my right foot being reluctant to follow instructions from my brain. So, for the first time since I was maybe two, I've been thinking about every step I take, especially the steps that require lifting righty. That understandably gets you noticing others practicing "deliberative walking," if I may call it that. All my life I've been the kinda guy who chooses to wait in the car while the Farm Manager goes shopping, and all my life that was a pleasant respite when one could watch pretty women coming in and out of the store. Now I'm watching men of a certain age. And holy sh!t, damned near everybody's obviously deeply engaged in making sure that next step lands where it needs to. Praise the Lord! I'm not the only one!

When it comes to posh sinecures, absolutely nothing compares to House Marm at Rhodes House

Think about it. If you're a president or prime minister in a liberal democracy, your salary won't amount to more than a few hundred thou. Not only that, but you will be disparaged every day of your life as a lying shitbag. Who needs the aggravation? Ask Mark Carney how much he enjoys playing capo dei capi. On the other hand, as near as I can gather, School Marm at Rhodes House pays around 2 mil per annum. Plus a full staff including chefs, sommeliers, drivers and generic flunkies, not to mention residence in Cecil Rhodes' mansion itself! When's the last time you saw a Rhodes person taking any questions whatsoever from hostile media? Never! And lo and behold, that's where our former deputy PM finds herself today, at what's gotta be the tippy-tip-top of the greasy pole of cushy sinecures that await our Epstein class political operatives.

Fresh new Epstein scandal discovered in Michigan

Ho-hum... another posh private school for the children of folks who think for $80k their kids will escape the depravities of the public ed system, only to have them buggered and abused by Epstein & Company. Here's a quote from Jeffrey Epstein that's worth a momentary ponder:"Many members of the global super-elite have helped me to understand their world and some have become friends." Well, did they ever! And now, thanks to some intrepid investigative journalism at the New York Times by reporter Graham Bowley, even more Epstein Evil has come to light. Here's what got me sniffing the air for the wiff of conspiracy theories. While the above quote could very plausibly be an Epstein original, it actually comes from Chrystia Freeland. Yes, Epstein and Freeland both mixed freely among the global elite, Chrystia as a self-confessed small-time anti-Russia spy and A-list journo (top gun at Reuters), and Jeffrey as the most prolific pedophile and sex trafficker in known history. Oh, and by the way, by far the most consequential spy for Israel since Jonathan Pollard. Jeffrey's and Chrystia's paths must have crossed many times while they inhabited the same milleu. In fact, he variously swindled, promoted, partnered with,mentored,advised, sued, or defrauded many of the name's dropped by Freeland in her bountifully footnoted memoir of that time in her life, yet no reference to Epstein? Maybe after he gets to the bottom of this Michigan outrage, that NYT reporter can look into this. After all, Graham Bowley remains married to Ms. Freeland... maybe they can collaborate! I see a Pulittzer Prize ahead!

How Canada stands up to Donald Trump

This is a reprint of a story first published six years ago. Back then our leader was the one-time high-school drama teacher, the haircut that walks like a man. Today our leader is one-time elite global banker, the urbane technocrat who wowed the world with his defiant Davos speech. The six-year-old piece is fresh as this mornings's news headlines for one reason; our approach to Trump has not changed one iota. Lots of feisty op-eds and political grandstanding, but behind the curtain, strictly business as usual. Its hard to keep your elbows up when your pants are around your ankles.******** neumann's blog Sunday, October 4, 2020 How Canada stands up to Trump Canadians generally and Canadian media in particular have an ingrained antipathy toward Donny J. We are, after all, a sophisticated, educated, and morally superior nation, and Trump is...well, just so darned yucky and gross. Today, Jaime Watt's column in the Sunday Star is titled "Trump is running against democracy." Who can even imagine such a thing! Trump is so yucky and gross he is running against the very democratic ideals that make civilization possible. Star columnist Vinay Menon, meanwhile, advises his (presumably Canadian) readership to "seek out the remarkable healing power of Biden," although evidence that Biden has "healed" much of anything in almost a half century in politics is threadbare at best. While these A-list Canadian pundits are polishing our smug and sanctimonious superiority complex, the Royal Canadian Navy was, for the fourth time in four months, sending a warship through the Taiwan Strait. While Canada is blessed with an abundance of coastlines, none of them are anywhere near China, so it's not as if we're over there "defending our interests." No, what we're doing is "standing with our allies" in a signal to the commies that we're a vital part of the coalition of "liberal democracies" ever anxious to keep the Yellow Peril in check. The leader of the "liberal democracies," also known variously as "the free world," the Nations of Virtue, or simply Uncle Sam's Club, is of course America's Donald J Trump. One could question just how sound America's claim is on either liberalism or democracy, but aside from the ubiquitous Trump bashing, these questions don't come up. It's as if our pundits believe that America was that "shining city on a hill,"right up until January 20, 2017, when the light of freedom was suddenly snuffed. If we all wish hard enough, perhaps it may flicker back to life after November 3rd, when we can once again huddle under Uncle Sam's skirts without embarrassment. In the meantime, our allies UK and US, sail through the Taiwan Strait on a regular basis, and it is imperative that we "stand with our allies," the same "liberal democracies" currently busying themselves with destroying Julian Assange in revenge for exposing their war crimes. Here's the problem; talk is cheap. It costs nothing to write anti-Trump op-eds. On the other hand, it costs hundreds of thousands of dollars per day to sail a Halifax-class RCN frigate through the Taiwan Strait. And our frigate fleet is getting long in the tooth. We need to upgrade the fleet if we are to continue standing with our allies. To that end, Canada is forging ahead with plans to build 15 state-of-the-art frigates at a cost of 45 billions. The lead contractor is US military supplier Lockheed Martin. For all our Trump-bashing and anti-American posturing, it is clear that, virtue-signalling aside, Canada's ruling elite remains as desperate as ever to ingratiate themselves with the Big Dog, regardless of who sits in the Oval Office. They remain American Empire Loyalists to the core.

Mothers and beer

Back when I was a teen living under my mother's roof, she had concerns about my beer consumption. In the first place, as a pious Christian woman, the fact her underage teen son could get his hands on the devil's brew pointed to the overal disintegration of society. Not only that, but once her boy had tasted beer, cigarettes and gambling and loose women couldn't be far behind. Well, I generally missed out on the loose women, to my chagrin, and gambling is one vice that I never heard calling my name, but she wasn't wrong about the smokes. And the crazy thing is, now that Mutti is in her nineties and I'm in my seventies, she's more worried than ever about my beer consumption! Obviously, I stayed ahead of the devil's brew long enough to have a career and raise a family, but by God, have things ever gone off the rails since I retired. I suddenly come down with a gluten allergy. Yup, bread and beer are suddenly verboten! Try telling that to a guy who has lived his whole life on bread and beer! I have to say, for all my adult life, I'm sure I never met a sandwich I didn't like. That got Mom overly interested in my diet, so when the next turd dropped into my retirement punch bowl, ie the alleged "congestive heart failure" business, she was primed to unleash a generous dose of motherly love. Long story short, now that I'm an invalid, or if not quite yet, soon, wouldn't it be smart, before you're completely incapacitated, to sell your place way up there and move closer to your family? I don't know Mom... In the first place, once I'm completely incapacitated, I can't imagine it's gonna be you changing my adult diaper. Secondly, it's getting easier to find gluten-free bread and beer. Just today I had a lovely Reuben on gluten-free Pumpernickel from the Boone bakery, and I've been washing it down with a four-pak of Ancestral brand organic quinoa beer, which comes from a brewery not 100 km up the road in Barrie. Anyway, liebe Mutti, the world is becoming a better place,at least for the gluten-free! Looks like I'm gonna try to make a go of it here, at least for the time being. (And in case anyone thinks I'm abandoning my 90-something Mom, know that of her five children, none of the others live more than ten minutes away.)

Canadian Museum of Human Rights still wallowing in petty political squabbles

In the quarter+ century since Izzy Asper first proposed a Museum of Human Rights for Winnipeg, I've often poo-pooed the idea. Seems kinda smug and pretentious. Relegating human rights to a museum doesn't bode well for human rights, in my view. As I predicted, planning for the project was soon mired in endless squabbling between various interest groups over who deserved more floor space. The rancour continues to this day. While the planning team was able to mollify, at least somewhat, the Ukrainian and Jewish lobbies, they left many others disgruntled. One of the groups that felt excluded were Arab-Canadians. They were finally thrown the bone of a temporary exhibit commemorating their expulsion from their homes on the creation of Israel. This has riled up Canada's Jewish lobby. Today, CBC informed us that Gail Asper, Izzy's daughter and Chair of the Asper Foundation, was resigning, because the Nabka exhibit would not have been to her father's liking, and since her family had once put in $20 millions in seed money CBC obviously figures she has a point. Here's a few things CBC doesn't mention. While Izzy Asper's fortune may have provided the first 20 mil, the federal government spends more than that every year just to keep the lights on in the joint. Another thing CBC neglects to mention is that serious museums world-wide are managed by professional curatorial staff, not by the children of wealthy donors. Not that these visionary donors have been able to see their vision through. Izzy Asper was riding high in those days. He was on Forbes Billionaire List!... but not for long. Izzy's master stroke was to pay Conrad Black $3+ billions for his portfolio of money-shredding media properties!(probably the last time in his career Conrad walked away from a deal with the satisfation that he'd totally pantsed the guys on the other side of the table). In 2002 Asper sponsored a cross-Canada speaking tour for The Greatest Leader Since Moses. He was and his children remain outspoken promoters of Netayahu's Greater Israel project, which ultimately demands the expulsion of the remaining non-Jewish population of Palestine. Alas, Izzy's golden age as a billionaire media mogul was short-lived. By the time Canwest's 4.5 billion market cap was down to twenty bucks (and I'm talking market cap here, not share price) Izzy's vanity project had long transformed into a goverment project, with somewhere in the range half a billion in taxpayer funds to date. In one of my early posts on this farce, I positted that Winnipeg, which was at the time the child povery capital of Canada, would at least now have a venue to which Winnipeggers could take their hungry children and show them they don't have it too bad after all.

Not all genocides are equal

Back in April of 2022, our government passed a resolution declaring Russia's full-scale and totally unprovoked invasion of Ukraine a "genocide." And what a genocide it's been. Five years on, multiple Ukrainian news outlets reported,early in June, that child deaths in the war had passed 700. The nation was in mourning. While even one child death is of course one too many, let's try to get some perspective here. More than four years after Ottawa declares a genocide in Ukraine, child deaths pass seven hundred? Israel blew through that threshold within the first two weeks of their war on Gaza. The child deaths are in the tens of thousands, yet our political establishment dare not utter the word "genocide?" What are they afraid of?

Reality preps rude surprise for Trump regime

Pretty much the entire planet sees by now that the Emperor be buck-naked. The towelhead scum, to paraphrase the leader of the liberal-democratic world, have done stole the Strait of Hormuz, and won't hand it back, even though we've totally destroyed their entire military infastructure many times over. So, what to do when you've won a historic victory, the likes of which the world has never seen, and the fuckers you just decimated for the nth time are still blithely firing missiles through your imaginary air defenses every day? That's a conundrum the world truly has never seen before, especially the Western World. Sure, it took us twenty years and trillions of dollars to lose to the Talibs, but this is an entirely more spectacular scale of humiliation for the American Empire. If America's flailing military efforts are not embarrassing enough, the duct-tape, baling-wire, and bullshit that keeps the bankrupt US economy afloat are becoming hard to ignore. Thanks to a few brave souls like Gary Marcus and Ed Zitron, the massive hoax that is the "AI boom" is coming unglued, and there goes at least a trillion USD worth of haircuts to the biggest names in global finance. What's that gonna do to Donny's 'hottest economy in the world,' where fully 40% of the heat was being generated by a massive hoax? While I generally try to avoid any engagement whatsoever with AI, it's hard to avoid. I asked Google today if the ChatGPT-Huggingface story was a hoax. The first thing that comes up is of course Google's AI summary. The first line of the AI summary reads "The ChatGPT story was not a complete hoax," how reassuring! At the end of the summary, there is the ever-so-helpful reminder that AI makes mistakes, in other words, it's prone to making stuff up and it's best to check its results... more reassurance! Between the military fiasco on one hand and the economy swirling round and round in the big white telephone, Donald J Trump is cementing his place in the history books!

Doo-doo just keep gettin' deeper... and deeper and de..

After a quiet day at home, spent mostly on the stoop, watching the turkey vultures soar, I opened my laptop and checked out the latest news. OH! MY! GOD!!! No matter where you look, it's nothing but bad news all over every channel! A little war here, a little genocide there, and that's enough to stoke fear galore. And that's exactly what our thought-leaders intend. Spread the fear thick enough and long enough and eventually you'll have people clamouring for warships and submarines and fighter jets! No point investing in health-care, education, or housing when our entire way of life is under threat.

Holy chrystal ball! This blog predicted 2021 Nobel Prize winner by name in 2017

I was rooting through what folks have looked at on this blog with three (3) followers, according to my dashboard. We're slowly and steadily on our way to 6 million views. I happened across a post from 2017 that predicted David Card would snag a Nobel in the fullness of time, and sure enough, he did! While I'm cetainly happy for Dave, I'm also a little miffed. Dave made his rep as a lefty economist with "Myth and Measurement," which he co-wrote with Al Krueger when they were both at Princeton. That initially got way more rasberries than accolades, but Dave's rep as a "lefty" persists to this day. That's why I encouraged him to use his high profile in the way certain other high profile academics, like Jeffrey Sachs, for example, have done. Dave's reply was that sort of thing is best left for retirement. Well, around the time he's getting his retirement paperwork in order, he suddenly becomes a Nobel Laureate! Berkley will for sure provide him an office, desk, and support staff for the rest of his life, even if he lives to 120. He is inundated with invitations to guest-lecture at the most prestigious universities in the world, invitations that inevitably include luxury accomodations and generous honorariums. I can't imagine the farm boy from Wellington County starting to rock the boat now. Here's the post from 2017. ******* neumann's blog Friday, June 30, 2017 Props to an old pal Me and Dave hooked up at Ponsonby PS in grade four. We were inseparable buddies till about grade seven or eight, after which our high school careers took us in different directions. I'm thinking about Dave because there's a story in today's Globe, penned by major league practitioners of the dismal science, that heavily references my old pal. Seems Dave was the first Dismal Scientist to stick his neck out for the proposition that increasing the minimum wage did not necessarily mean that jobs would be lost. He more or less got his head chopped off for that. Twenty years later everything old is new again. Raising the minimum wage is not a job-killer after all! Dave will no doubt have a Nobel with his name attached in a few years. Good on you, buddy!

Can the beautiful game survive Trumpian douchebaggery?

I'll be perfectly blunt. Personally, I don't get the allure of "the beautiful game." My late father and all three of my brothers can converse knowledgeably about who's who and what's what in the British Premier League and all the top Liga across Europa.They can spend an afternoon watching a 0-0 draw and act like they witnessed a great sporting event! As far as I'm concerned, normal fans in any other sport feel ripped off by a 0-0 tie. Nevertheless, FIFA is in charge of the biggest televised sporting event in the world. Bigger than the World Series. Bigger than the Indy 500. Bigger than the Super Bowl! That's why I'm shocked that FIFA boss Johnny Infantino's impeccably-coiffed head has been permanently wedged between Mafia Don's butt-cheeks ever since he presented him with the "FIFA Peace Prize." First one ever! I mean lots of people have won Nobel Peace Prizes... ho hum... But Donny J won the FIRST EVER FIFA PEACE PRIZE!!! The world has never seen anything like it! I don't get it. In the big picture, Infantino is a big deal and Trump is... well, not doing all that great. Then again, that name rings a bell... Infantino. Wasn't there a New Jersey Mafia boss by that name back when Donny was building casinos in the Garden State? Anyway, Spain won and the Argies didn't. The country that denied America its airspace for its criminal attack on Iran defeated the most obnoxious cheerleader for Israeli apartheid and its US-supported genocide. Let's try to enjoy that, at least for one day.