Putin poops pants in paroxysm of panic

CBC informs us that Canada has offered to join Uncle Sam in threatening "massive consequences" against Russia, should they renew their aggression against Ukraine.

I’m sure Uncle Sam is delighted to have the back-up of one of NATO’s bench-warming non-entities, especially since the US has already stated categorically that it has no intention of intervening militarily should Putin decide to annex his neighbour.

No, instead, they’re promising “massive sanctions.”

Whoa!

Not massive sanctions!

That’s gotta have Bad Vlad pooping his pants in paroxysms of panic… Russia hasn’t been slapped down like that since Poroshenko struck Putin from his Christmas card mailing list in 2015!

So Canada is all-in for massive sanctions. Problem is, Russia-Canada trade was never anything of consequence to begin with, and what remains has been subject to progressively tightening sanctions since at least 2014.

In other words, Canada has zero leverage in the sanctions department, so our FM’s generous offer to Blinken was a complete nothing-burger.

On the other hand, there are some serious NATO members in Europe who could have some leverage against Russia using trade sanctions. Unfortunately, they are heavily reliant on Russian natural gas to power their electrical grids and keep their populations from freezing to death.

Looks to me like Putin’s in for a stern scolding should he annex Ukraine!

Which raises the question, why would he want to?

Ukraine, in Soviet times, was both the breadbasket and the industrial heartland of the Soviet Union. That ended thirty years ago. Over those thirty years Ukraine has become a failed state, mostly due to the corruption of its oligarch-infested political class. GDP/capita is now 3x higher in Russia than in what was once its most prosperous region. (As a point of reference, Canadian GDP/capita is 4x Russia’s.)

Aside from the eastern areas where Russian-speakers predominate, there are no Russian interests in Ukraine. Why would Putin want to “annex” a hostile failed state?

That said, our foolish talk about NATO membership for Ukraine has led to the current crisis. NATO infrastructure in Ukraine, Russia says, is a red line. That would include those NATO “training missions” Canada prides itself on “leading.”

Here’s a potentially life-saving tip for FM Joly and CAF brass. If we absolutely must train Ukrainian nationalist extremists, why not bring them here? After all, there's plenty of military bases out in Canada's Ukrainian provinces, Alberta and Saskatchewan, where our trainees would be welcome and Russian missiles won't reach.

Sounds like a win-win to me!

Fall-out from another Covid Christmas

Let me tell you what the fall-out looks like around here.

We were planning on a lovely family get-together on Christmas Eve. 

Plans were made. 

Arrangements were arranged. 

Gifts were purchased.

We don't do gifts per se, but there's the courtesy gift for the host, and I like to bring a box of chocolates for each of the aunties.

The Farm Manager pitched in with four gift packs of gourmet roasted nuts. Each gift pack is billed as a "party serving for six."

Then there was the jug of Crown Royal for my brother, who was born the day after Jesus.

The day before the party, we got the email that there ain't no party this year.

Covid, of course.

The booze didn't make it to new year's eve.

But we're just into the second box of Mill Creek chocolates, and we got four more to go, so we'll be good to spring, at least.

Unless diabetes strikes first.

As for the nuts, I found a lentil-walnut spaghetti recipe in the paper today, but that barely puts a dent in the stockpile.  

My greatest fear is that we'll still have this year's Christmas goodies in the pantry when next Christmas rolls around.

And if that's a Covid Christmas too, I'm planning a walnut-and-chocolates overdose to take me to a better place.

So Canadian, eh?

Took a drive out to Tuggy's Gas and Variety on the Saugeen Indian Reserve today, to gas up and pick up a little bud. The gas is about ten cents cheaper than off reserve, and their pot shops undercut the government pot shops by half or better.

Not that I need weed, but once in awhile I want a change of pace from my own home-grown. After PM Fluffy legalized the weed 'o wisdom, pretty much every smoke shop, variety store, and gas bar out there opened a cannabis dispensary. At some level I suppose I'm cheating the government out of some tax revenues by patronizing Indigenous establishments, but I see it as doing my part for reconciliation.

Over the years I had quite a few kids from this community pass through my classroom. One of the rare success stories from my time in teaching was how the participation rate for male students has improved. Thirty years ago you didn't see many Indigenous young men in high school. It was almost as if it was a cultural taboo.

The last few years before I retired, there didn't seem to be a stigma anymore, and many of those young men were thriving.

Most homes and businesses displayed "Every Child Matters" banners. You see quite a few of those off reserve too, but not like this. That's a sharp reminder of the long and disgraceful history of Indian-government relations in this country.

One little shop had a sign out front that was almost as big as the store. 

Top line; Every Child Matters.

Second line; Go Leafs Go.

So Canadian, eh!

Insider reveals why CBC going down the toilet

If you’re one of those taxpayers who bemoan the billion dollars plus of annual subsidies lavished on the CBC, you’ll no doubt enjoy Tara Henley’s resignation letter, published in the National Post yesterday.

Oddly enough, her letter largely echos points I made months ago; CBC explains why it's going down the toilet.

It’s been disappointing to see how so many professional journalists have willingly gone along with the CBC’s embrace of a supposed “cultural and social revolution,” invisible to all but the most earnestly “woke.”

Disappointing, but not surprising. The profession has taken a beating in the internet era, and a CBC paycheque isn’t something many journo’s are willing to put at risk.

They were, no doubt, all idealists at one time.

But that was then.

Today, when faced with the choice of defending journalistic integrity or making their mortgage payment, with rare exceptions, they choose to keep their home.

It’s an understandable choice, but let’s stop calling the CBC’s abject propagandizing of everything from foreign policy, to vaccination mandates, to race relations, “journalism.”

Here we go again!

Yup, we had Captain Doug at the microphone again today.

Friends, you know I hate to do this, but the Science...

Tsunami of cases...

A freight-train bearing down on us.

Ya, we know, Doug.

As near as I can tell, the only reason for this latest lockdown is we gotta try to save the healthcare system from collapse.

Excuse me, but when you have to shut down the schools and the economy to save the healthcare system, hasn't it already collapsed?

You'd think a healthy healthcare system would be able to handle sick people, even when there's an uptick in admissions. 

Instead, we've so starved healthcare of funding, there's zero resilience left in the system.

Part of the problem, in addition to chronic under-funding, is where the money goes. 

I've been mightily impressed with how many national, provincial, regional, and local health authorities and round-table experts we have in this country, all of them dipping into the public trough for very healthy six-number salaries, all of them available at a moment's notice for a TV interview, and none of them ever going anywhere near a patient.

Couldn't we save a lot of taxpayer boodle by having one healthcare administration system for the entire country? Health care seems to be very top-heavy, but there's never enough money to properly compensate the PSWs changing the bandages and the diapers.

Anyway, it's a done deal. Big Doug has done shut 'er down at least for a couple weeks. 

Because there's a tsunami of cases coming at us like a freight train, and we gotta man the battle stations...

Because we're all in this together!

Spinning vaccine propaganda

Here’s a fun experiment you can do from your couch.

Search “which countries use ivermectin to treat covid” using different search engines.

You’ll notice the search results from Google are substantially different than the results from Yahoo or Bing.

Google offers up scare stories.

The other search engines answer the question.

When Google has 90% market share in internet searches, most people will never see what Google’s algorithms are hiding from them.

That’s how our free society rolls. We have created a most free and wonderful public-private-partnership of narrative control.

It’s a beautiful thing…

Remember Arab Spring?

Welcome to Fascist Spring!

Duck fat spray

My new year's resolution; I'm gonna keep things light.

Yup, no more politics in the old blog. 

I'm getting a little tired of it anyway. I mean, I've been telling you for years America has devolved into a fascist corporate billionaire-run dictatorship, and nobody gives a shit.

So I'm gonna talk about cooking instead. The Farm Manager likes to cook like I like to write. I'm not even sure how we got on the topic, but somewhere along the line we got to debating the best way to reheat potatoes.

When you get right down to it, that's quite a fascinating field of study. Think Irish potato famine. In fact, there should be Potato Studies programs throughout the universities.

I'm surprised Ryerson doesn't have one, because they're usually well ahead of the curve on this kind of stuff, although, for obvious reasons, they'd have to market it as "Critical Potato Studies." 

But I feel I'm veering into the political realm again, so lets bring it back to the potatoes.

How best to reheat potatoes depends on what kind of potatoes you are reheating. There are potato dishes like perogies or their cousin, the potato dumpling, that can be passibly reheated by microwave. Everything else needs a real oven or stove-top.

That's where duck fat spray entered into the conversation. The FM claims the very best way to reheat potatoes is in the skillet, after you give the skillet of squirt of aerosol duck fat.

I had no idea!

How do they even get the duck in the can?