Making America grate again

Even people who never liked Obama have to admit the guy was smooth. He spoke softly while swinging the big stick.

People the world over found that calming, at least the ones who weren't on the receiving end of sanctions, or worse, in America's relentless crusade to impose its will on the rest of the planet.

Not only that, but he didn't get along with Netanyahu, which counts for something.

I think that's what makes people nostalgic for Obama. That eloquent gentleman swinging the stick has given way to a whole different thing. We're not speaking softly any more!

Hell no! Today the stick-swinger-in-chief spews non-stop foolishness at max volume. The performance at the UN today was a prime example. An awful lot of diplomatic types deserve full marks for their diplomacy simply for sitting through the idiocy!

At this point in history, most countries in the world just wish Uncle Sam would go home and mind his own business. After eight years of the smooth-talking Obama, Trump truly is making America grate again.


Bigly!

Who is waving Greta Thunberg at us?

Greta Thunberg is a media confection.

Like most sixteen-year-olds, Greta knows not much about anything. But, also like most sixteen-year-olds, certainly myself at that age, she is supremely confident in the belief that she brings searing insights to whatever topic is at hand.

I think it's reasonable to conclude that Greta's insights are not her own, but rather, reflect the agenda of the grown-ups and the PR professionals around her.

If and when she unequivocally states that we cannot go forward under the current economic system, and we need a total society-wide rethink of capitalism, maybe I'll start paying attention.


Until that happens, she's just another side-show.

Another Neumann heaps shame on the family name

These things happen with some regularity. Check out this story of a Mexican guy pretending to be Michael Neumann in order to fleece unsuspecting investors. Michael Neumann is a mild-mannered university professor. He might have some investments, but he certainly doesn't have investors!

Or check out this sordid tale. Truth be told, we haven't had any dealings with the Wisconsin side of the family for generations, and now I understand why.

But I must admit I was shocked to see this story about my nephew Adam. Last I heard, he'd moved to the city and was doing OK for himself...

OK?!

47 billions is OK alright! And how curious that the ungrateful little shit totally forgot his dear uncle while he was amassing this fortune!



But alas, things that appear too good to be true generally turn out, in the fullness of time, to be too good to be true

DNC on brink of spectacular own goal

On page A9 of today's Globe and Mail a headline informs me that "Trump allegedly asked Ukraine to investigate Biden's son." That's the Globe's version of this story, found originally in the Wall Street Journal, and now a staple across mainstream media.

Yup, there goes Trump again, abusing his office to stymie a potential rival...

Unfortunately, it's Biden's own words, and not any dirty dealing on the part of Trump, that are going to cause some embarrassing blow-back here. Check out this story from the NYT  back in May. Or, if you think the Times is too Trump friendly, even Michael Bloomberg's personal propaganda platform reports Biden bragging about getting a top Ukrainian judge fired for investigating his son Hunter's adventures in the Ukrainian natural gas business.

Obviously any competent journalist reporting these latest allegations would be aware of both Hunter Biden's involvement in Ukraine and his Daddy's boastful comments about interfering in Ukraine's internal affairs. So why don't they pull the loose threads together and tell the whole story?


Because the Democentric mainstream media have a horse in this race, and it ain't Donny J.

Now that's a sandwich!

It's tomato time at Falling Downs. Like everything else, the tomatoes are coming in a little late this year, but talk about a bumper crop! There's nothing like a fresh-off-the-vine garden grown tomato. They're a completely different dining experience than the store-bought tomato. Cut 'em up in thick slices and put them on a slab of fresh sourdough bread with nothing but butter and a sprinkle of salt, and you've got a dining experience to die for.

Spent the afternoon at Cedar Hill Park. It was a glorious late summer day, and our beach neighbours were a really big family from one of those Hutterite cults... Amish or Mennonite, they all look the same to me. My old pal Lippert, may he rest in peace, used to refer to them as "stinkers," which I suppose could be seen as a derogatory term. Not that he was averse to trading with them for mutual benefit.

Jimmy used to have a side gig running a not-quite-legal egg operation. Quite a number of local restaurants used to source their eggs from his farm. When the laying hens ran out of gas, he'd trade them to the Amish for whatever was on offer, be it apple pies or cedar fence-posts. Those wore out hens would be in pickle jars by the end of the day, and we'd be homeward bound chowing down on fresh-baked pies.

Our neighbours came to the beach fully equipped for waterfront fun. That included an aluminum boat with a good sized Merc outboard and a couple of kayaks. My reaction to seeing Amish teens paddling by in their long skirts and head coverings is pretty much the same as when I saw those Hindi women in colourful saris paddling a canoe in one of our provincial parks - anyone who can do that obviously belongs here.

I'd been tossing sticks into the water for old Boomer, but they were too small to get her attention. I finally found a piece of cedar tree trunk about eight feet long. That got her into the water. Unfortunately, she grabbed it at the one end, and the seven and a half feet of cedar hanging out the other side of her snout acted as a rudder of sorts, heading her hard to port instead of coming back to shore. She was basically swimming to Wiarton with her prize!

She would have drowned long before she made landfall, had one of the Amish kids not kayaked out, grabbed the other end of her tree trunk, and guided her to shore.


That's my Canada; a little short on fatuous virtue signalling, but long on decent folks helping one another out, no matter what their background.

Pot-addled hillbilly 'splains negative interest rates for y'all

Ya, I know... the very concept of "negative interest rates" is a bit of a mind-fuck for normal people.

Don't worry. Negative interest rates won't be hitting normal people anytime soon. TD or Royal Bank won't be paying you to take out a mortgage with them, at least not in this lifetime.

Negative interest rates are about super-rich folks who, for the most part, inherited their money. Let's call that "stupid money." It's stupid money because the folks who hold it don't actually have any clue about how to make any.

These are the same folks who made Bernie Madoff a wealthy man.

If they survived Bernie, and have a hundred million or two left, they are really keen on preserving their capital. They are so keen on preserving their capital that they will tell a super-major bank, one they believe is way too big to fail, "hey, I'd be happy to park my money at your bank. In fact, if you guarantee I'll get 99 of my 100 million back by the end of the year, I'd be delighted!"


These are scary times for the super-rich...

A nation in thrall to political correctitude

Canada, what a concept!

PM Trudeau gets caught out strong-arming his AG to get favourable resolutions of some nasty stuff on behalf of a major corporation. A more clear-cut violation of judicial independence would be hard to find.

Nothing happens.

PM Trudeau gets caught out, 18 years ago, as a privileged 29 year old twat in blackface, and OMG, the sky is falling!!


Seems we got some messed up priorities in this country.