Biden pulls plug on Zelensky, will stand with Israel as long as it takes instead

After a year and a half of “whatever it takes for as long as it takes,” Uncle Sam’s caravan of freedom, democracy, and human rights is moving on. While Ukraine is still shown on maps, it has completely disappeared from the news. Trust me, I tried to find updates on the counter-offensive today, and you literally have to go to Ukrainian or Russian news sites to find anything. The days of Churchill Mandela Zelensky jetting around the world for standing ovations appear to be over. The debacle in Ottawa was his last hurrah. Instead, Washington will now focus its energies and resources on helping our brothers-in-freedom in the Holy Land defeat the terrorist uprising in Gaza. It was 18 years ago last month that Israel pulled the last Jewish settlers out of Gaza, thereby creating the independent Palestinian homeland that was to usher in an era of peace in the Middle East. And what did they get for their sacrifice? Nothing but trouble! Arabs in general and Palestinians in particular have proven over and over that they are not ready for peace and democracy. As former IDF General and current Defense Minister Yoav Gallant put it today, “those people are animals and we must respond accordingly.” To demonstrate American resolve, a US navy carrier strike group is on its way to the eastern Mediterranean as I write these words. Fortunately for the forces of righteousness, Gaza has no army, navy, or air-force, so Netanyahu’s stated goal of turning the home of 2,500,000 Palestinians into a “deserted island of ruin” should be accomplished by the time the USN gets there. Nevertheless, the Americans will take pride in having stood with Israel for as long as it takes (four or five days max), the first time the US military has come out on the winning side of hostilities since Grenada. Unless of course the entire Middle East goes up in flames, in which case we will have to revisit the situation and strategize next steps.

Netanyahu wanted another war and he got it

Anyone who follows Israeli politics is well acquainted with a recurring theme in the career of The Greatest Leader Since Moses; when his political fortunes are on the down-tick, Netanyahu turns up the dial on violence so he can pose as the strongman who can teach the Palestinians a sharp lesson and bring security to the Holy Land. Works like a charm… or at least it has till now. At this point, there is no reason to assume this time is different. Bibi’s desperation to form a government after the last election resulted in him forming alliances with the most racist and extremist settler factions. The shocking deterioration of Palestinian living conditions since the current coalition took power has been obvious to everyone. Settler extremists have had a green light to terrorize Palestinians across the occupied territories. Hardly a day goes by without Palestinians dying at the hands of settler extremists and/or their IDF protectors. The repeated violations of long-standing protocols around access to Al Aqsa has inflamed Palestinian rage, and is cited by Hamas spokespersons as the rationale for launching the current attack. Supposedly, the Hamas offensive took Israel by complete surprise. I find that hard to believe. Every Palestinian resistance entity since the creation of Israel has been thoroughly riddled with spies and collaborators. Israel has enormous advantages in technical surveillance capabilities. It is far more plausible that Israeli intelligence was fully aware this attack was coming, and chose to let it happen. Why? Within 18 hours of the attack, opposition leaders Lapid and Gantz have already agreed to participate in an “Emergency Government.” Just imagine; full support across the entirety of the political spectrum for Netanyahu! You can bet those massive anti-government protests we’ve been seeing for months are over for the foreseeable future. So what happens next? For the moment, Netanyahu has a mandate to unleash extreme vengeance against the Palestinian resistance. But the “what-ifs” are ominous. What if Hezbollah enters the war? There’s been numerous senior IDF officials over the years warning that Hezbollah has a missile stockpile of hundreds of thousands capable of striking anywhere in Israel. What if Iran enters the war? Iran is but the most vocal state supporter of both Hamas and Hezbollah. There are others, and if push comes to shove, even Arab states that have been working at normalizing relations with Israel will be forced to take sides. And let’s not forget that both Russia and China have been stitching up mutual defense agreements with Iran. What if Israel needs to call on its ultimate enabler, the United States, to make good on its promise to ensure Israel will get everything it needs to prevail? Isn’t that the same promise they’ve been making to Ukraine for over a year and a half? And how’s that going? Netanyahu has upped the ante as never before. We live in interesting times.

The slobification of graduation

I remember my high school graduation. It happened seven years after I started grade nine. I'd dropped out for a couple of years, because I was too cool for school. After life kicked me in the balls once or twice I decided maybe I'd be better off with a high school diploma after all. For graduation I wore a suit. That's what you did in the day. You got dressed up for special occassions. Check out the pictures of the crowds in Dallas as JFK's motorcade rolled by. Everybody was wearing their "Sunday best," as we used to call it, even though it was Friday. You honoured God by dressing up. You honoured the President by dressing up. You paid respect to your fellow grads by dressing up. Well, that's all gone for a shit. Saw the pics from the grad ceremony at the high school I retired from a few years ago. Ya, a few kids went to the trouble, but by and large, the kids who wore pjs to class every day, wore them to graduation too. Maybe I'm being too judgemental. Maybe some of the pj kids bought new jammies specially for grad night.

Wab's wild years

While we toast Wab Kinew’s historic victory last night, let’s not lose sight of the big picture. While technically only half white, Kinew has been a creature of privilege his entire life. Sure, he had some issues early on. The testosterone-alcohol combo has been the bane of many a young man. It’s a credit to Kinew that he got past that phase. However, that’s where his path deviates from the stereotypes. Instead of staying trapped in the downward spiral so many young Indigenous find themselves in, Wab Kinew bounced into a career at CBC, thanks to his privileged background. CBC gave Kinew a national profile, and that’s what got him into politics, and here he is, Premier-elect of Manitoba! The term “hang around the fort” was used by Indigenous activists to refer to those in their communities who sucked up to the colonizers, the inference being that when you hang around the fort long enough, your loyalties to your people are compromised by your dependence on the fort. Let’s hope Kinew can rise above that. Manitoba’s Indigenous population, at 20%, the highest in the land, has extremely high expectations of Mr Kinew. Sooner or later, he’ll have to choose between his people and the fort.

Mysteries of the Blog-o-Sphere

I recently had a run of 2-3000 daily page views. That added up to monthly hits unlike anything I've ever seen. I couldn't figure it out. From a website that was lucky to get a few dozen looks per day, I was suddenly getting thousands? Get the fuck outta here! I figure it was all bots from Singapore. That's where all that traffic was coming from. Then somebody turned the bots off. This website had 5 views on October 2. Looks to me like invisible internet hands have pulled the plug on this blog.

Bank of Canada reveals price hikes make inflation worse!

Price hikes make inflation worse? Who knew!? You’d have to admit we’re in Captain Obvious territory here. Here’s the full story from CBC. At CBC, the operative assumption is that we’re all retarded. When you think about it, you can see where they’re coming from. After all, we live in a country wherein the entirety of our political elite applauded a 98 year-old dude who fought Russia in the WW2. Between 370 MPs and another 100+ Senators plus assorted worthies from the highest ranks of the military, not a single one remembered that Russia was actually our ally in that war, and if you were fighting Russia, you obviously weren’t on our side. But the lot of them applauded till their hands were numb. How retarded is that?

If this gorgeous Indian Summer is due to the climate crisis, let's restart a few more coal-fired generating plants

Coal-fired generating plants are a no-no in the civilized world. Coal is the dirtiest of fossil fuels, in case you don't know. Nations of Virtue who understand science have been swearing off coal for a generation. Mind you, there's been some back-sliding of late. In Germany, where the mysterious sabotage of the NordStream pipeline massively sped up the process of getting off fossil fuels, they're dismantling a wind farm to expand an open-pit coal mine. In Kansas, they're restarting a coal-fired generating plant to power a new factory that'll build batteries for electric cars. Seems to me "net zero" is disappearing into the mists of time... And here's another head-scratcher. What's wrong with all those scientists and engineers in India and China? How do they not recognize the dire threat of the climate crisis. Don't they listen to UN boss Guterres? Haven't they heard we've opened the gates of hell and the oceans are boiling? While we in the Nations of Virtue are signing a wait list to take delivery of an EV in a year or two, India and China are non-chalantly building new coal-fired generating plants willy-nilly! So what's the point? But back to this glorious Indian Summer. I have no idea if it's related to global warming, climate change, the climate crisis/catastrophe/cataclysm etc, but I do know it's one of the most pleasant autumns in memory. As for the bogeyman of the day, if we were serious about our contribution to this alleged crisis, we'd get serious about cutting back consumption. We'd focus on building appliances that last fifty years and cars that'll take you half a million miles, and we'd expect a winter coat to last at least ten winters. We'd plant vegetables where the lawn used to be, and what remained of lawn we'd mow with a non-powered push mower. Any trip under a mile we'd walk. Up to 10 miles we'd bike. Beyond that we'd take public transit if at all possible. And it goes without saying we'd have to give up power boats for sailboats and paddle-boards. It's obvious we can't pursue perpetual economic growth on a finite planet. Stop pretending we can continue our reckless over-consumption of resources just by transitioning to "clean energy." We need to put climate ahead of GDP.