The slow lane

I live in two worlds. One is the world I see on my computer screen. It's hard to take your eyes off that world, because we live in very interesting times. As a life-long cheerleader for the demise of The Empire, I recognize the import of this moment. Regardless of what you hear on Fox News, The Empire is in dissaray. We are witnessing the dissolution of Empire in record time. It typically takes decades or even centuries for a sclerotic failing Empire to collapse. Donny J seems determined to "git-r-dun" in one term! The other world is the one I see from the stoop. It's a different world, a world I'm trying to spend more time in. That's a challenge because wi-fi is excellent on the stoop. Willpower! Ya, as if! But I'm happy to report I spent a good four or five hours out there today sans laptop! In an entire afternoon out in the fresh air I saw a dozen cars, two dozen pickups, and a couple tractors go by. Plus, some logging trucks. There's a guy down the way harvesting his woodlot. Gets me wondering if my 20 acres of woodlot might yield a new Kubota with heated cab and snowblower. But I digress. Things aren't looking all that great for Western Civ in general, and as far as I can see, there is essentially zero leadership in the "Free World." The Eurotwats want to be ready for war with Russia by 2030, because... I don't know... freedom and democracy I suppose. Anyway, as Carney scours the world for new trading partners, none of the computer-screen drama impacts my daily routine, and it's hard to imagine it ever will. Mind you I am within the 160km danger zone the experts have designated around Bruce Nuclear. If Putin hits that puppy I just gotta hope there's nor-westers blowing that day instead of sou-westerlies. Anyway, life goes on, and I pretty much stick to the slow lane, at least if I can't just walk there. At this point, "life goes on" is in itself a declaration of victory! I know I've been whining about health challenges, but SHUT UP ALREADY!!! So long as one can eat and shit... don't worry... be happy!

Trump declares "peace in our time" for 39th time in three months

Donny J is working on the premise that if you repeat utter bullshit often enough, eventually it becomes reality. Or at least seems realistic enough to much of his fan base that they go along with it. I can see how that happens. I just spent ten minutes watching Larry Kudlow interview Gen. Jack Keane at Fox. Aside from being a retired General and the boss of the Institute for the Promotion of War, Keane is always keen, in every appearance on screen, which is multiple times per day, to remind the Fox audience that Trump's tenure as Commander-in-Chief has cemented America's status as World Hegemon. The reality of things of course points entirely in the opposite direction. In the first year-and-a-bit of Donny's second term, the wheels are falling off the Empire's bandwagon everywhere you look. No matter the extravagant lengths the narrative managers go to divert our attention, it's hard to come to any other conclusion than non-nuke Iran has fought two nuke powers to a stalemate. I predicted months ago that America didn't have the resources to crush Iran, and that once US power in the 'hood was throttled, Israel as we know it is doomed. That's not a bad thing. The Israel that every Christian kid who ever went to Sunday School was taught to revere, has long since morphed into a racist apartheid state committing mass murder on an industrial scale. The end of the US empire that facilitates and fully pays for Israel's atrocities can only be welcomed by the entire Middle East.

It's down the memory-hole for Ukraine and Zelensky

I just did a scroll-through of the home pages of CBC News, CNN, MSNBC, and Fox. There was not a single reference to Ukraine or its president, who for the better part of two years was met with rapturous applause as he toured the capitals of the democratic world in a never-ending fundraiser. Likewise, not a single story about the Ukraine war in the news section of today’s Globe & Mail. A passing reference in a story about Xi’s upcoming trip to the EU is as close as we get. Not a peep in the opinion section either. So what happened? Where’s Zelensky? Is the war over and media forgot to mention it? Have the plucky Ukrainians driven the Russians out of their land and secured the future of the Free World? No. Although none of those news platforms seem interested in informing us, the war is going horribly. For Ukraine. This is a monumental humiliation for the US and NATO. Time, therefore, to change the subject. Move along, folks! Nothing to see here! So, what’s the newest existential threat barreling down on us? At CBC it’s the imminent threat of a bird-flu pandemic. At Fox it’s the imminent threat of the antisemitic, Marxist, Israel-hating, terrorist-loving radicals occupying college campuses across America. At CNN, MSNBC, and in the pages of the Globe & Mail, the biggest threat to the future of civilization is a familiar one-Donald Trump! The brain trust at the Globe are so threatened by the possibility of a Trump win in November they’ve reached Rachel Madow levels of hysteria in sounding the alarm! Four full pages in the opinion section devoted to “can-democracy-survive-Trump” gnashing of teeth and rending of garments. Ya, they warned us last time too. There’s not a lot of folks convinced the world is better off after three years of Joe Biden as the top prop in America’s billionaire-run Theatre of Democracy. So goodbye, Zelly, your fifteen minutes are up. I’m sure you’ll be very well compensated. It’s a shame about your country…

Good old times with Jimmy Walker

Remember the show Good Times? There was a tall skinny Black kid starring in it, Jimmy Walker.

I saw an interview with Jimmy on Fox today. I'd link you to it but Google algorithms have pulled my linking privileges. They quizzed Jimmy on how he felt about cancel culture etc.

Well, you already know Jimmy wouldn't be on Fox if he was going to promote the PC point of view, so no surprises there. 

Jimmy's not a fan.

But here's what made my head explode.

In the intro, they tell us Jimmy Walker, that skinny teenager you saw on TV when you were a teenager, is now 74 years old!?!?

How the fuck did that happen to the poor devil?

Could Biden be worse than Trump?

The American cable news networks have rallied round the banner of American Exceptionalism. MSNBC still fobs most of the blame for the Afghanistan surrender onto Trump, although they're not as keen on Sleepy Joe as they were a week ago.

CNN seems undecided. Their man Joe ain't quite the man they thought he was. They're about 50/50 in assigning blame.

Fox, the semi-official mouthpiece of all things Republican, now has all the proof they need that Biden's been a dementia-riddled husk all along.

But all of them agree that this gigantic sloppy turd the Talibs just left on their exceptionalist carpet has ruined the reputation of the Exceptional Nation everywhere and for all time.

More anti-union, anti-worker propaganda

Check out this report from Fox News about the UAW strike at GM. It tells us flat out that GM workers make $63/hr in pay and benefits.

Fake news?

In fact, the highest earning shop floor folks make about half that. That's the old guard, people who have been there fifteen years or more. After the UAW allowed the two-tier contracts to come in, anyone hired since makes substantially less.

GM comes up with this number by throwing the expenses of almost half a million retirees into their labour costs! That's totally bogus, but the media who report this stuff want you to think that there's greedy UAW members who make well over $100,000 a year, striking for more!

Is that because the billionaires who own the media want to stir you up against unions?

Jews will not replace us

I was perusing the CNN-Fox news corridor today, and it seems lots of folks have got their knickers in a twist over the impending reunion of the "white nationalists" in Charlottesville.

Saw a clip of some white dudes carrying torches there last year. They appeared to be chanting "Jews will not replace us."

Hey pal, I think your job at the car wash is pretty safe. Ain't no Jewish conspiracy gonna take your job anytime soon.

I'm fully aware there's a lot of really stupid white folks out there, but "Jews will not replace us?" That's a bit much... that's so retarded you'd almost think it has to be a setup. Maybe there's a drama class at U of Virginia where they get a credit for carrying a torch. Maybe you get your Master's for throwing on a bed-sheet and chanting "the KKK is here to stay."

I don't know...

What I do know is that anytime there's one of these "white nationalist-white supremacist" get togethers that take months to organize and might attract a few dozen seriously deluded dumbfucks, normal people can organize a counter demo of thousands in a matter of days.


It's always darkest before the dawn. There is still hope for America.

Gorsuch, Janus, Judas, and Jimmy Hoffa

My lefty friends tend to question our friendship when they hear me opine on Hoffa being the last great labour leader in American labour movement history.

What? He was mobbed-up out the ying yang! He was a thug! He was a crook!

Well, even if that's all true, so what? In his era, he was up against mobbed-up politicians, mobbed-up employers, private thug armies in the pay of the above, and a system that was designed from its inception to represent capital rather than labour.

He met that system on its own terms; with violence on the picket line. More often than not in the Hoffa era, the Teamsters prevailed. That's why being a Teamster meant living the American dream back in the fifties and sixties.

That's why Hoffa had to go.


Almost 45 years after that Lincoln dropped off Hoffa's corpse at the loading dock of a salami factory two hundred miles from Detroit, American labour awaits with baited breath the outcome of the Janus case. Every day we see multiple opinion pieces at Fox and elsewhere about how the greedy fingers of the corrupt unions are about to be pried from the wallets of America's working class.

Every day we see multiple opinion pieces in what's left of the lefty press. OMG, this is the final nail in the coffin for unions... the working class is screwed!


Here's my take, and I'm speaking as a life-long union guy who was at various times a member of the Steelworkers, the UAW, the IWA, the International Association of Bridge, Structural, Ornamental and Reinforcing Ironworkers, among others. I say, let Gorsuch give Janus his day.

If this kills Big Labour, good riddance.


Why do I say this? Because Big Labour long ago hitched their wagon to the Democratic Party. That may have meant something at one time, but as the Dems have moved ever to the right over the past two generations, Big Labour has failed to un-hitch. They have become accomplices of and stake-holders in a status quo that has immiserated the majority of American workers.

Getting rid of the status quo will allow American workers to start over.

Irresistible clickbait: LA's homeless pooping in streets...

That gem is on view at Fox News as I write these words.

Alas, once you click on it, the homeless are no longer "pooping," they are "defecating." 

It's the old bait 'n switch; promise a poop but deliver mere defecation. I'm not sure I'd have clicked on that. "Poop" is so much more poetic. Puppies poop. Babies poop. It's a rather benign thing, pooping is.

Defecation seems much more clinical. Serious. Almost scholarly.

The truth of the matter is that LA's army of sidewalk dwellers don't poop and they don't defecate.

They shit. Fifty thousand of them take a shit in the street once or twice a day. More if you've got digestion issues, which I imagine you'd have often enough when you're eating out of dumpsters.

On the face of it you might be taken aback by this story. Isn't LA one of the great cities of America? And isn't America itself "the city on a hill?" The richest country in the world? The exceptional nation? The most advanced society in the history of history?..

And people shit in the street?

Get over yourself!

Coping with this phenomenon requires a global perspective. Think Mumbai, Lagos, Nairobi... all great cities where people shit in the street! LA is joining the ranks of the great international cities!

Having the homeless shit in the streets is a sign of America's rise to true world-class status!

As humanity lurches towards Armeggedon, this is what's trending at Fox News

Madonna uses $600 mask on her butt to keep the skin soft.

Well, good to know, I suppose...

I always thought of her as a bit of a hard-ass!

But no, she really cares about keeping her buttocks soft and supple.

Who knew?

Furthermore, who cares?

Apparently enough people to make this story "trend."

God bless America!

After 241 years, Uncle Sam still has head up arse

Figured I'd go to the patriotic network and see if I can glean what's on the minds of patriotic Americans this Independence Day. I wasn't disappointed. Fox News producer Steve Kurtz has a few timely thoughts. Along with the predictable clap-trap about the constitution and freedom of speech, and how American militarism has made the world a safer place etc., I found this gem:

7-11

Life is hard enough, so it's nice to know there's a place to go at 3 am, even if it's just for cigarettes and lottery tickets.

How true! Yup, nowhere else in history has anyone had the freedom to buy cigarettes and lottery tickets at 3 am! Shows yet again how much we take for granted, doesn't it!

Steve, you are truly a living testimonial to America's education system.

Elsewhere at Fox, Dr. Heather Wilson and General David Goldfein give themselves a shout-out for the great work the USAF has been doing in the Middle East.

Linger over that last paragraph. The US has been "in continuous combat for 26 years..."

Doing what?

"Providing stability..."

Hey, maybe after another 26 years of continuous combat the folks in Baghdad and Damascus will enjoy the freedom to step out for cigarettes and lottery tickets at 3 am!

God bless America!

Fox News goes Trump positive

Even a couple of weeks ago you could not have imagined a headline like this; What is a Trump Republican? GOP front-runner building diverse coalition.

What that tells me is Fox is trimming its sails and keeping their options open. We may be a long way from an endorsement, but at the same time we've come a long way from the network's obvious attempts to trip up Trump in that first debate.

Maybe that was Rupert's way of testing Trump's mettle. In any event, the most influential media network in America is now inventing Trump-friendly memes (Trump Republican) and claiming he is building a diverse coalition, neither of which were conceivable in the very recent past.

For many years the Murdoch empire has been happy enough to serve as the house organ for the GOP establishment. If Trump has a strong showing on "super tuesday," Murdoch may well gamble on abandoning that establishment in favor of a Trump endorsement. That would herald the crumbling of the old order and the birth of a new era.

Just imagine; a NYC liberal at the helm of the GOP, with an endorsement from Fox News!

How messed up is that?

That would be the biggest yank on America's cultural leash since Chris Rock noticed that the top rapper was a white guy and the top golfer was black.

New research reveals billionaires underpaid

Yup, the good folks at Fox News crunched the numbers, and they found that billionaires are good for us. In fact, the Forbes 400 "created or control ten million jobs across the country."

Not only that, but it's a proven fact that successful entrepreneurs reap a mere 3% share of the value of their enterprise. Three percent!

The other 97% is their gift to society!

Nor should we even think about raising taxes on the super-rich, because they'll just hire more tax lawyers, or stash their money in tax havens, or leave the country.

Or all of the above!

So what America really needs is more billionaires creating more jobs and paying fewer taxes.

THAT would truly make America great again!

Megyn Kelly represents the very best of American journalism

If that's what Roger Ailes says, who am I to argue?

Think about it. What does "best" mean in the context of American journalism in 2015?

It means an easy-on-the-eyes talking head reassuring Americans of their manifold exceptionalities.

If that's the standard, I gotta say Megyn is up there with the best of the best.

That's not a diss on Megyn or Ailes or Fox News or Donald Trump.

That's a diss on the state of journalism in America.

Ezra Levant victimized by anti-Semitic Canadian legal system

Poor Ezra.

Well, at least after this he'll be a little poorer than before.

Canada's wannabe answer to Fox News, the Postmedia Network, has been grooming the hapless Levant for years to become Bill O'North.

It just ain't been happening, and the reason it ain't been happening is that virtually nobody tunes in the obnoxious turd.

Hopefully nobody at Sun TV or the bankrupt parent company is foolish enough to fund an appeal, in which case we owe Khurram Awan a huge debt of gratitude for helping rid the public square of this anti-Arab, anti-Indian hate-monger.

The Boston bombing; who would want to harm America?

You can see where the folks at Fox are going to have a field day with this one.

"The enemy within."

And a thousand variations of that trope.

Who would want to harm America?

Who has America harmed in the last generation or two? Mind you, the folks "over there,"  the "other," the "Towelheads," our victims... all those folks have been known to hang on to a grudge for much longer than a generation or two.

So whether this is another case of America's chickens coming home to roost, or just generic blow-back for a poisonous American foreign policy that has terrorized much of the world for the last fifty-plus years, only liars and stupid people can claim they didn't see it coming.

What will America's reaction be?

Reality check for Charles Krauthammer

I was just watching Charles Krauthammer on Fox News. According to Krauthammer, Iran is the "most grave threat" facing America today.

Hmm...

Last year the US spent about 700 billion dollars on its military.

Iran spent about 7 billion.

At last count America had well over 5,000 nuclear weapons.

Iran has been months away from figuring out how to build its first one for about twenty years now.

But people watch this nonsense, and what's totally shocking, they'll tune in tomorrow to catch even more of Krauthammer's insights.

Celebrating poverty; how Fox News spins economic reality for young people

Back in the dark ages any teen with enough get up and go to land a part-time job at the corner gas station could own a car.

A car meant freedom. You could visit the girl or the liquor store or the drug dealer or the church in the next county any time you wanted. Freedom.

That was the dark ages. We've had a lot of progress since.

Among other things car ownership was a status marker. Owning a car marked you as someone who was free to visit the next county or the next state whenever you wanted, for whatever reason.

That was the dark ages.

We've made a lot of progress.

By the time the '90's rolled around, car ownership among teens had pretty much died out. A teen might be able to afford the latest Nike sneakers, might be able to afford a Bulls jacket, but probably couldn't afford to own a car.

Minimum wage doesn't go as far as it used to.

Today any teen can walk up to a cell-phone kiosk in any mall and walk away with a phone that works. That's the new coolness factor. Minimum wage will cover a minimum cell plan.

You can't visit the next county or the next state, but you can text your "friends" all over the world.

This is what Fox News is talking about when they crow about web-savvy teens not wanting to drive.

It's not that they don't want to; they can't afford to.

But the no-spin folks can spin that into a feel-good story.

US loses key Africa ally and it's Gadaffi's fault

Up until today the land-locked African country of Mali was a key US ally in everything from the war on Libya, the war on terror, the war on drugs, and the war on Chinese influence in Africa.

All gone in the blink of an eye.

No wonder the White House is leading the chorus of "international" condemnation of the coup that has Mali President Toure running for his life. "International" in this case means the usual basketful of US vassal states in Africa and beyond.

It's interesting to see how Western media are spinning this story. Up until today Mali has been consistently portrayed as a model African democracy. Sure, it's one of the poorest countries in the world, but their President is democratically elected, and they play along with all the standard US initiatives like the war on Gadaffi and the war on drugs, so obviously they are good guys.

The democratically elected President was ousted by "renegade soldiers" according to CNN and Reuters. Fox had them as "drunken soldiers". Hey, I guess that would explain why you'd want to overthrow a "democratic" US-friendly government in one of the world's poorest countries...

So how was this Gadaffi's fault?

Mali has for many years had issues with its Taureg minority. The Taureg are a nomadic tribe that wander in and out of the various countries around the Sahara. They suffered the usual litany of abuse that nomadic people everywhere in the world suffer, but they found a friend in the eccentric Gadaffi.

Gadaffi not only allowed the Libyan-based Taureg the same rights as all Libyans, but he welcomed Taureg from neighboring countries into his military. When Gadaffi was deposed by last year's nine month NATO campaign, tens of thousands of them headed home, looting military stockpiles along the way.

When they got back to Mali they joined up with their fellow tribesmen who have been staging a long-term struggle for independence from the most stable democracy in Africa.

With their ill-gotten booty from the looted Libyan military stockpiles they've been easily kicking the shit out of the regular (US sponsored) Malian army. And it's that army that today pushed our ally President Toure out of the Presidential Palace.

Another one bites the dust.

Fox's Bill O'Reilly sez GOP race not cool with old white guys

And he had three old white guys on his show just to prove his point.

Sucks to be you, Bill. Must hurt a lot to see the unwhite old guys taking over the roost.

One of the issues Bill was particularly incensed about was those Persian towel-heads giving us the finger about their nuke program.

Guess I'm a bit of a traitor in the incensed-old-white-guy ranks.

As an old white guy, I think it's dispicable that anyone would want nukes.

Nukes have been nothing but bad news ever since the US tried off a couple on Japan back in the WW 2.

That was enough for me. Ever since, I've thought it was pretty obvious that nobody should have any.

But the nuke club keeps expanding. The Russians needed them to balance out the US. The Chinese needed them to balance out the Russians. The Indians and the Pakistanis needed them to balance out the Pakistanis and the Indians.

And now the towellers in Iran think they need them to balance off the Israelis.

Well, when you think about it for a moment, they probably do.

The IAEA nuke cops are crawling all over Iran as I write this.

They steer clear of Israel.

Why?

And that's a question that "No-spin Bill" will never even have on his radar.