It'll be a minority government one way or the other. A Scheer-Bernier coalition is not inconceivable either.
My gut feeling is that Trudeau stays, thanks to a coalition with either the NDP or Greens or both. That would hopefully pull him back a bit from Uncle Sam's embrace, but perhaps that's wishful thinking.
One of the most shameful episodes of the past four years was Canada's brazen toadying to American regime-change ambitions vis-a-vis Venezuela, when we took on the "leadership" of the Lima Group. That was our PM and his Foreign Minister prostituting Canada's good brand to run cover for a bunch of US vassal states that have egregious human-rights challenges within their own borders.
Why is this not an election issue? After all, we were interfering in the politics of a sovereign state in the most outrageous way possible!
But we're supposed to be afraid of Russian trolls?
Monday, October 7, 2019
Sunday, October 6, 2019
Cinderella's carriage
Took in the car show over at Pumpkinfest in Port Elgin on Saturday. It offers substantially more bang for the buck than the Cobble Beach extravaganza that happens two or three weeks earlier. That's because Port Elgin charges zero admission, whereas Cobble is $45 per, if I remember correctly.
Port Elgin is a little more grass-roots. Pretty much everything there drove to Port Elgin under its own power, which isn't a claim most of the field at Cobble Beach can make.
Port Elgin is where you'll find a late-sixties muscle car that the loving owner spent ten years and all his disposable income restoring.
Cobble Beach is where you'll find the rarest of rarities that the doting owner dropped off at a high end resto shop and dropped several hundred thousand dollars on its restoration.
They are both well worth-while.
There was some very cool stuff on view. How about a '69 SS 427 Yenko Chevelle?
Saw a '67 Impala SS identical to one I owned; 327 Powerglide, but in blue instead of the beigey-brown of mine.
There was a Rebel Machine in red. First one I'd seen although I'd read there was some built that weren't the red white and blue of the Machine I owned.
Perhaps my favourite was a '69 Coronet R/T, plain white, black interior, buckets, four-speed, dog-dish hubcaps... that transported me straight back to my late teens. A beautiful car!
Big turnout of Corvettes this year, especially the latest ones, which isn't very interesting because you can see those anytime you want in the showroom of your local Chevy dealer.
There were a number of older Vettes as well, all the way back to the fifties. One that caught my eye was a '62 that looked like it was in barn-find condition, cracked fibreglass and all. I remember seeing one just like it back in the early sixties at Pinehurst Conservation Area down near what is now Cambridge.
At the time, my dad worked at Omark, and they had their annual factory picnic out at Pinehurst. Are factory picnics still a thing?
Anyway, I was impressed with the cool cars some of Dad's coworkers could afford, including a very pretty little '62 Corvette Convertible. It made such an impression on me that I recall it to this day.
In hindsight, it's amazing that factory parking lots used to sport all sorts of the high-end muscle cars. Working-class guys were 99% of the market for those cars.
But times changed. Insurance and pollution regs pretty much put the kibosh on the muscle car genre. Then NAFTA came along. Twenty dollar an hour factory jobs in Ohio or Michigan or right here in Ontario became two dollar an hour jobs in Mexico.
Factory parking lots in my home town aren't that big anymore, because much of the workforce takes the bus. What cars remain in the parking lot are more likely to be fifteen year old Hyundais rather than late model Corvettes.
Thank goodness for progress!
Port Elgin is a little more grass-roots. Pretty much everything there drove to Port Elgin under its own power, which isn't a claim most of the field at Cobble Beach can make.
Port Elgin is where you'll find a late-sixties muscle car that the loving owner spent ten years and all his disposable income restoring.
Cobble Beach is where you'll find the rarest of rarities that the doting owner dropped off at a high end resto shop and dropped several hundred thousand dollars on its restoration.
They are both well worth-while.
There was some very cool stuff on view. How about a '69 SS 427 Yenko Chevelle?
Saw a '67 Impala SS identical to one I owned; 327 Powerglide, but in blue instead of the beigey-brown of mine.
There was a Rebel Machine in red. First one I'd seen although I'd read there was some built that weren't the red white and blue of the Machine I owned.
Perhaps my favourite was a '69 Coronet R/T, plain white, black interior, buckets, four-speed, dog-dish hubcaps... that transported me straight back to my late teens. A beautiful car!
Big turnout of Corvettes this year, especially the latest ones, which isn't very interesting because you can see those anytime you want in the showroom of your local Chevy dealer.
There were a number of older Vettes as well, all the way back to the fifties. One that caught my eye was a '62 that looked like it was in barn-find condition, cracked fibreglass and all. I remember seeing one just like it back in the early sixties at Pinehurst Conservation Area down near what is now Cambridge.
At the time, my dad worked at Omark, and they had their annual factory picnic out at Pinehurst. Are factory picnics still a thing?
Anyway, I was impressed with the cool cars some of Dad's coworkers could afford, including a very pretty little '62 Corvette Convertible. It made such an impression on me that I recall it to this day.
In hindsight, it's amazing that factory parking lots used to sport all sorts of the high-end muscle cars. Working-class guys were 99% of the market for those cars.
But times changed. Insurance and pollution regs pretty much put the kibosh on the muscle car genre. Then NAFTA came along. Twenty dollar an hour factory jobs in Ohio or Michigan or right here in Ontario became two dollar an hour jobs in Mexico.
Factory parking lots in my home town aren't that big anymore, because much of the workforce takes the bus. What cars remain in the parking lot are more likely to be fifteen year old Hyundais rather than late model Corvettes.
Thank goodness for progress!
Saturday, October 5, 2019
The limitarians are coming
Limitarianism is a thing. I read about it just this past week.
Limitarians are people who espouse a "maximum wage." We're open to the idea of a minimum wage; why not have a maximum wage to cap the other end of the spectrum?
Why not indeed?
Doctors are arguably the most respected profession, and we should compensate them accordingly. Doctors have to be really smart and work very hard to be doctors. When the local health authority was advertising for doctors in the past year, they were offering salaries in the range of 250 to 350 thousand dollars a year. That's roughly twenty to thirty thousand a month.
That seems close enough to reasonable that I won't quibble with it. But why does anyone need to make more than that?
That's the limitarian line, and they propose to tax the hell out of any income above that or some other arbitrary threshold.
I'm OK with that.
There'll be plenty of hysterical counter-arguments, to be sure.
"What about professional athletes? Their careers most often only last a few years."
Huh? We've been telling the kids for years now that they should expect to have five or more different "careers" in their career... but athletes are exempt?
I think not!
There'll also be a lot of caterwauling about how this stymies entrepreneurial types. You know, those small business owners who are allegedly the backbone of the economy.
At least 95% of small business owners only dream of making thirty thousand a month, so an upper limit in that range is more or less meaningless to them.
If we had a $15/ hour minimum wage and a thirty thousand a month max, we'd have a factor of twelve between the top rung and the bottom. That's enough of a differentiation that folks would still be motivated to get a good education, work hard, etc., but not enough to allow the proliferation of an uber-rich class with so much spare cash they can afford to buy our political system.
And that would be a good thing.
Limitarians are people who espouse a "maximum wage." We're open to the idea of a minimum wage; why not have a maximum wage to cap the other end of the spectrum?
Why not indeed?
Doctors are arguably the most respected profession, and we should compensate them accordingly. Doctors have to be really smart and work very hard to be doctors. When the local health authority was advertising for doctors in the past year, they were offering salaries in the range of 250 to 350 thousand dollars a year. That's roughly twenty to thirty thousand a month.
That seems close enough to reasonable that I won't quibble with it. But why does anyone need to make more than that?
That's the limitarian line, and they propose to tax the hell out of any income above that or some other arbitrary threshold.
I'm OK with that.
There'll be plenty of hysterical counter-arguments, to be sure.
"What about professional athletes? Their careers most often only last a few years."
Huh? We've been telling the kids for years now that they should expect to have five or more different "careers" in their career... but athletes are exempt?
I think not!
There'll also be a lot of caterwauling about how this stymies entrepreneurial types. You know, those small business owners who are allegedly the backbone of the economy.
At least 95% of small business owners only dream of making thirty thousand a month, so an upper limit in that range is more or less meaningless to them.
If we had a $15/ hour minimum wage and a thirty thousand a month max, we'd have a factor of twelve between the top rung and the bottom. That's enough of a differentiation that folks would still be motivated to get a good education, work hard, etc., but not enough to allow the proliferation of an uber-rich class with so much spare cash they can afford to buy our political system.
And that would be a good thing.
Hong Kong; only place on earth where masked Molotov-tossers are "peaceful protesters"
The brazen media hypocrisy around the riots in HK is a wonder to behold.
Much is made of "police violence." In fact, the police reaction to the so-called protesters deserves praise for its restraint. It's certainly the very model of restraint when compared to the brutal repression of protest seen in places like France, Israel, or Haiti.
Our media are virtually silent on the deadly use of force by authorities in France, Israel, and Haiti, whereas we are treated to endless twaddle about the HK authorities' "brutality," which, unlike those others, has yet to cost a life.
Why do the HK protests get endless promotion in our media while the far more deadly protests in France, Israel, and Haiti are ignored?
Because the governments of France, Israel, and Haiti are American allies, whereas China is America's rival.
Isn't that how our "free press" has always worked?
Much is made of "police violence." In fact, the police reaction to the so-called protesters deserves praise for its restraint. It's certainly the very model of restraint when compared to the brutal repression of protest seen in places like France, Israel, or Haiti.
Our media are virtually silent on the deadly use of force by authorities in France, Israel, and Haiti, whereas we are treated to endless twaddle about the HK authorities' "brutality," which, unlike those others, has yet to cost a life.
Why do the HK protests get endless promotion in our media while the far more deadly protests in France, Israel, and Haiti are ignored?
Because the governments of France, Israel, and Haiti are American allies, whereas China is America's rival.
Isn't that how our "free press" has always worked?
Friday, October 4, 2019
The one that got away
From time to time the half dozen or so regulars to this blog have heard me whine about how I'm being sandbagged by algorithms.
I'm not exactly sure how those things work, but it's obvious that they do. Too much crazy talk dissing US Exceptionalism seems to get the attention of these creatures.
What I find curious is that one particular post from a few years ago has by far outstripped any other of the five thousand plus posts that I have, to my dismay, birthed from Falling Downs. This particular post has over 15,000 looks, about ten times as many as the nearest runner up. If that was a book it would be a best-seller!
But why?
Reading it again four years later, I find it more or less stands the test of time. Name-dropping Heiner Muller into it was perhaps a little dilettantish, but overall it's a good solid piece of political commentary.
Here's the mystery; I've got hundreds of posts that are as good or better, that never got 150 views, never mind 15,000. Somehow this one slipped past the gate-keepers.
I'm not exactly sure how those things work, but it's obvious that they do. Too much crazy talk dissing US Exceptionalism seems to get the attention of these creatures.
What I find curious is that one particular post from a few years ago has by far outstripped any other of the five thousand plus posts that I have, to my dismay, birthed from Falling Downs. This particular post has over 15,000 looks, about ten times as many as the nearest runner up. If that was a book it would be a best-seller!
But why?
Reading it again four years later, I find it more or less stands the test of time. Name-dropping Heiner Muller into it was perhaps a little dilettantish, but overall it's a good solid piece of political commentary.
Here's the mystery; I've got hundreds of posts that are as good or better, that never got 150 views, never mind 15,000. Somehow this one slipped past the gate-keepers.
Wednesday, October 2, 2019
Clara gets her first checkered flag!
At age three!
Clara made her racing debut at the Tuff Truck shindig down Harriston way last weekend. She was competing in the Toddler Division, where the wee ones raced their little electric cars through a challenging off-road course.
Unbeknownst to Clara, her dear daddy and her grampa had swapped in a big old tractor battery in place of the original equipment on her mini-Jeep.
That little hot-rod, with 1,000 cranking amps, was throwing up thirty-foot rooster-tails from all four corners when Clara was going through the mud-bog!
Congratulations, Clara!
Clara made her racing debut at the Tuff Truck shindig down Harriston way last weekend. She was competing in the Toddler Division, where the wee ones raced their little electric cars through a challenging off-road course.
Unbeknownst to Clara, her dear daddy and her grampa had swapped in a big old tractor battery in place of the original equipment on her mini-Jeep.
That little hot-rod, with 1,000 cranking amps, was throwing up thirty-foot rooster-tails from all four corners when Clara was going through the mud-bog!
Congratulations, Clara!
Tuesday, October 1, 2019
Where to shit when you're homeless
There's a lot of focus on the shitting habits of homeless folks these days. Check out here and here.
That's about San Francisco. There's some really good reasons why the homeless are homeless in San Fran. Sure, mental illness and addiction take their toll, but what about that winner-take-all hyper-capitalist culture that causes so much of the stress that causes the addiction and the mental illness in the first place?
So here's a thought. Instead of shitting in the streets, why don't the homeless pitch their tents and void their bowels on the lawns of the tech millionaires and billionaires?
Same goes in other parts of the country. Anybody homeless in the Northeast should head for Connecticut, and the miles of verdant lawns surrounding the estates of all those top-drawer hedgies domiciled there.
If you're homeless a little further south on the eastern seaboard, setting up camp and a field toilet at a Trump golf resort would be a great idea!
Not only would taking a crap on a fairway at Bedminster be far more aesthetically rewarding than taking a dump in the street, shitting in THEIR back yard would allow the plutocrats to become better acquainted with the fruits of their labour.
That's about San Francisco. There's some really good reasons why the homeless are homeless in San Fran. Sure, mental illness and addiction take their toll, but what about that winner-take-all hyper-capitalist culture that causes so much of the stress that causes the addiction and the mental illness in the first place?
So here's a thought. Instead of shitting in the streets, why don't the homeless pitch their tents and void their bowels on the lawns of the tech millionaires and billionaires?
Same goes in other parts of the country. Anybody homeless in the Northeast should head for Connecticut, and the miles of verdant lawns surrounding the estates of all those top-drawer hedgies domiciled there.
If you're homeless a little further south on the eastern seaboard, setting up camp and a field toilet at a Trump golf resort would be a great idea!
Not only would taking a crap on a fairway at Bedminster be far more aesthetically rewarding than taking a dump in the street, shitting in THEIR back yard would allow the plutocrats to become better acquainted with the fruits of their labour.
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