Happy Birthday, Jesus, I Got You a Suppository for the Pain

Kidding. I didn't get you anything. I know, I know, it's been years since I bothered with your birthday. But in fairness, I don't bother with anybody's birthday, not even my own kids'.

And don't get me started on Facebook. Geez Louise. Grow up, Facebook friends.

But back to real life. I tapped out with shopping about two decades ago. I had planned on making a cowl by this Christmas for one of my three kids with the $126 worth of wool I accidentally bought a couple of years ago, but I got a job between the time I bought it and learning how to knit.

How the hell do people work and live? I go to work in the dark (because it's Ottawa and winter) and come home in the dark, shelve my to-do list pretty much as soon as I cross the threshold, and go to bed to work on my book of New York Times crosswords for five or ten minutes.

I do my reading on the bus commute to work. Middlemarch is my current read and I highly recommend it if you're a "reader". It's really quite funny and you'll learn a lot of political history you forgot from your degree in history.

Luckily for me of sixty years but little pension I actually enjoy this job. It's super hard (for me, not my twenty-something mentors) but I figure instead of learning physics or algebra I'll learn how to do it. Also, the people are fun and pleasant to be around and so good for the soul.

Build brain cells AND pension AND relationships.

One of the great ironies of life here in Canada where we continue to lack equity is that the more opportunities we have to make money, the more money we will continue to make. So I promise to whine less going forward (as they say in government meetings, not about whining less but about going forward) because I've led a relatively charmed life and it's unseemly and embarrassing to me now, how much I've whined over the years.

And on the internet, too, which is forever!

Bear that cross in silent suffering I have not.

Okay, one more whine. Well not really a whine, more a public service announcement for you men out there reading this. On Sunday, I passed a kidney stone. So hear it from me - I pushed out three good sized babies, and when our healthcare professionals tell you men that passing a kidney stone is comparable to having a baby, know that they're lying.

Passing a kidney stone is exactly a grabillion times more painful than having a baby. I even had a doctor who looked and acted like he'd just stepped off the set of Grey's Anatomy, and nurses who also looked and acted like they'd just stepped off the set of Grey's Anatomy, all of whom assured me that passing a kidney stone wasn't dangerous, just painful, and I still thought I was in danger of going into cardiac arrest from the pain.

Oh, I just remembered, I thought I was going to die giving birth to my first child, and, in fact, asked the doctor if maybe she was overlooking my possible death from cardiac arrest due to the pain.

Okay, never mind, men. Know this instead - that suddenly, the pain will go because the stone has passed or dissolved or whatever the living hell your kidney has got up to with it. But unlike with having a baby, where we forget the pain so that we go on to have more babies, the memory of the pain in passing a kidney stone will linger, and, if you're smart, you will fill that prescription for suppository pain relief. It will barely put a dent in the pain but you'll be more comfortable inserting it at home than in a hospital washroom.

Anyway, here's what I learned about life at sixty this past Sunday - it's all about access to pain relief - and that, at the very least, should be equal for everybody.

Merry Christmas.

Against Her Better Judgement

Is the opinion piece below hate speech?

Ask Me Anything (Just Not That)

This Reality

Dear "the Left": Climate change alarmists, so Greens - and they won't say this out loud so aren't you lucky you dropped in - equate more money for Joe Sixpack and Sally Housecoat with more drives to the mall for disposable house and home filler-uppers and kid-amusers made on the other side of our polluted planet by people of much fewer means.

And everybody pretty much knows they're right, including Joe Sixpack and Sally Housecoat.

Conservatives know this, too, they just don't care.

Petty Business

So, I wasn't going to blog about it but I've changed my mind because it's too important to not, but the past month or so has been one of those awful nightmares chez moi caused by the incompetence (and hopefully not but possibly the corruption) of the sorts of people who can threaten to cost us money we don't and shouldn't owe.

It took an incredible toll on my health and well-being. I lost about five pounds and I can't afford to lose even one. It was the anxiety caused by being put in that situation. I couldn't sleep, I couldn't eat, and it was all happening at a time when I'm learning how to do a difficult new job.

Fortunately, the people in my new workplace are understanding of this sort of thing, the situation I was put in being not so different from the situations of people they try to help.

But it got me thinking about all my co-citizens who find themselves in these situations every now and again and how soul-destroying they can be. For two weeks I felt like I could jump out of my skin, it was so frustrating. I'm recovering, but slowly, because I'm sixty and shit like this takes a higher toll on us when we're older than it does when we're younger.

It felt like a trespass into my home, that's why the fight or flight response I experienced. And I don't know if there's a gender divide here or not but I'm pretty sure I felt it stronger than did my male partner. It was a threat, I felt threatened, hence my reaction.

Anyway, the world is awash in corruption, we're all witnessing it writ large 24/7 thanks to the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States. But it's what we do to each other down here in Joe Sixpack and Sally Housecoat world that can have more devastating effects on our health and well-being, I think. The whole nightmare brought to mind a man who killed himself because he was being hounded by a collection agency for money he didn't owe. We had a similar problem years ago. The previous holder of a phone number we inherited owed money and I remember actually being lectured by one of these harassers that he was looking out for the taxpayer. I asked, "By harassing people who've inherited the phone number of someone you allege owes money?" And he actually said, "Yes!"

But what do you do? Do you sue? Or do you go forward in life keeping in mind that you never know what struggles people are privately living and to be kind to everybody, including the people who cause us needless pain and suffering.

So we'll see what happens next. I certainly hope this nightmare is over and my body can heal. I'll eventually write about this in my next book, and I'll make it funny because as Tommy Sexton put it, "What is there to do but laugh?"

Let's Not and Say We Did

This is classic America right now - celebrities reading the Mueller Report.

It's the brainchild of Cheri Jacobus.

Yeah I don't know who she is either.

Montel!

She's Baaaack

Who else but JWR.

Now she doesn't want to give up her big office to a Liberal.

Too bad she's not Algonquin or she could declare all of Parliament Hill her territory.

Make it super awkward for PMJT.

A prince in his culture, a princess in hers.

And never the twain shall meet.

Except in Ottawa.

Yo, Guys Who Wanna Be Billionaires

You'll still be dead forever.

Hahahahahahaha!

Algorithms Gone Wild

I noticed a Facebook friend pointing out how it targets her with inappropriate clothing ads, all the stereotyped way from fairy princess costumes to dominatrix underwear.

As far as I can tell, she's a politically astute musician whose hobby is deep-diving into online propagandizing operations.

I don't even see the ads they're targeting at me. But hey, I'm at that invisible age so maybe they're working and I just can't see it.

Annnnnd, I'm Done

So I had a revealing experience yesterday when I went to purchase a new smart phone (because I recently paid off the tab on the one I have now and so the battery is dying faster than a speeding bullet).

The handsome young man in the store steered me towards the phone he claimed was the one he owned (which I only just now realized is probably total bullshit) and I thought, okay, may as well get a good one - NOT that I have any idea what's good and what isn't when it comes to these pieces of disposable crap we rely on more than ever for reasons which escape me.

Anyway, I wasn't quite ready to do the deed as I didn't have my dying phone with me or my account number of the company I'd be switching from (because I have no idea how to get my account number as I really don't know how to use my dying phone). The handsome young man wanted me to come back later because he was working yesterday, not today, and being a former retail employee (2013-2015 ladieswear at the mall - watch for my book "That Looks Good on You - You Should Buy It" - coming soon) I sympathized with his warm eyes and charming smile and planned to do just that.

Then I went to the nearby grocery store, did my shopping, got home around 3:30, and realized I didn't have time to figure out how to get my account number off my dying phone, let alone go back to the phone store and do the deed.

We were scheduled for a potluck downtown, 6-ish, and I still had cookies and a salad to make.

By the way, cab companies in Ottawa use dispatchers on the other side of the world now and so public transit had better get its fucking act together or I'm moving to Timbuktu - where the cab dispatchers live?

The thing is, I'm so glad I didn't follow through now because I realized last night that I don't want to have to learn how to make proper use of a smart phone. It's too much for me. I'm done, tapped out, topped off. I'd even get a rotary phone that jacks into the wall except that then I'd be a sitting duck for pollsters and scammers and I doubt anyone makes them anymore anyway because they're not disposable pieces of crap.

We're drowning in garbage and we all know why and I guess I can at least not replace a smart phone I never used as anything more than a rotary phone that I could fit in my bag and take with me to work - which reminds me to tell you that my past couple of G-workplaces haven't come with phones!

So I'm going to stay with the same company I'm with because they're not extortionists, at least (so not Rogers or Bell) and get a phone that just does calls and texts. And when I'm lost, as I am on occasion because I still leave home without necessarily knowing where I'm going, I'll just ask someone who knows how to use their smart phone where I am and how I can get to where I want to be.

Because here's where I'm at now, I would much rather depend on the kindness of strangers, than learn to use one more bit (byte?) of technology.

Prim and Proper

I was just thinking the other day that, for all we roll our eyes or shake our fists at political correctness, especially when we're censured for doing or saying something politically incorrect because of it, the insistence on it by the better citizens among us has really made our country so much better than it was when I was a kid and political correctness was just a twinkle in a Feminist's eye.

Apple Puke

I dare you to watch Apple's Christmas ad currently running on CBC and not be sickened by the treacle. Ugh. I think it's the worst ad I've seen on CBC since yesterday.

Remembering Peter Kent

Really? I'd be more worried if Trudeau WASN'T making fun of Donald Trump at international receptions and the like. I mean, it would be hilarious if he did it with Donal Trump sitting right there beside him, but, you know, weird.

Always remember, no wait, never forget, "Oh you piece of shit!"

Best line ever uttered in Canada's House of Commons.

But seriously, kudos to whoever took the video.

Very reassuring.

Double Agent Man

My theory now is that Donald Trump only pretends to be a money laundering traitor for the Russian mob while actually being an informant for the FBI on the real money laundering traitors for the Russian mob.

Christmas Comes Early to Ottawans

I was going to blog about how a lot of the men I've encountered on the internet aren't so different from Donald Trump, re his slanderous, bullying, and litigious behaviour, particularly towards women he feels threatened by, but then I learned on CBC that the straps for the bars on Ottawa's light rail cars that the average sized woman can't reach without hurting herself have arrived, so yay, eh, life is good.

Christmas Vulture

I find now that I don't participate in Christmas in any way, shape, or form - I kind of enjoy it.

Existential Wednesday

I'm starting to forget what life was like before Donald Trump sucked the point out of it.

Existential Monday

If the internet had been around when I was a kid, I'd have not done a lot of the things that I did.

But what does it matter one way or another when it's around for me now.

Although I don't like how stressful it feels when it goes down.

At first.

Then I start hoping it never gets back up.

"back up".

Get it?

I'm here forever.

Try the veal.

Telecommunications Litterbugs

Why isn't there a regulation compelling Rogers and Bell to remove their satellite dishes and cables from both private and public property and dispose of them responsibly when their services are cancelled? It seems crazily irresponsible to me that they're allowed to just leave their crap everywhere like it's nothing to do with them. Smarten up, regulators. Make those litterbugs clean up after themselves, please.

Taxes?! We don need no stinkin' taxes!

The problem with Ottawa is that Ottawans are allowed to drive their private vehicles into its downtown.

There are even a couple of hired hands with a Stop Sign stopping pedestrians on the Queen Street sidewalk so that greenhouse gas emitters can turn into the Rideau Club parking lot.

And if we weren't such cheapskates we'd have a great light rail system instead of whatever OC Transpo slapped into place.

Size Matters

Just a reminder that Alberta has a population of about $4M, half of which is from Ontario and Newfoundland.

Would You Like Environmental Destruction With That?

The most enjoyable burger I've ever had is the A&W plant-based burger at Place d'Orleans.

(It was an excursion to Fabricland, which is located a few long blocks away on the main drag of Orleans. And if you've never been to Orleans, don't go. It's the most alienating place on Earth.)

That even includes the one made by a server who went from building it to handling cash and back again to building it - all the while wearing the same pair of plastic gloves.

Oh wait... that was a Harvey's.

Whatever, no wonder we're drowning in plastic.

To Quote Stephen Harper

“you won't recognize Canada when I'm done with it”

Oh the teenage boy level arrogance, eh?

As I say as often as I can, we still don't know who funded Stephen Harper's leadership campaign.

But after we voted the bum out he went on to head up an international cabal that supports the election of men who seem a lot like more like white Christian nationalist Vladimir Putin than they don't.

Whither Our Legions

I didn't hear you denounce Don Cherry's racism so maybe get on that.

Perhaps a spokesthingy for our armed forces could do the same.

Also hockey heroes. Speak up, please.

We've got a big ol' racism problem here in Canada and you lot need to start speaking up about it and addressing it. Do it now before the racists think you've got their backs instead of your country's.

Thank you once again for your service.

Don Cherry Proud

Jeezus hockey is racist, eh?

Also, legions, as we politely ignore.

While I'm at it, our armed forces could use a good values testing, too.

The McLeod Institute

I wonder when aged infrastructure not kept up by the tax cut generations of which I am a member, plus the effects of climate change due to capitalism, will render private property ownership so risky, financially, that our governments will have to pay us to buy it.

No Reason for Short People

Not on the Otrain.

Why?

Because there are no straps for women of average height (so most women and more than a few men) to hold onto for stability.

And yet there's a brand new station at Cyrville - and the train makes a stop - even though no one ever got on or off the bus at Cyrville. And no one will ever get on or off the Otrain at Cyrville, either.

No woman, anyway.

Meanwhile, light rail stops a whole suburb before where all the eastbound traffic into downtown comes from.

Also, there's a point in the ride east where the train really strains to navigate a curve. It's unnerving now so imagine how unnerving it will be in an ice storm.

Oh, and the cars smell. Sure, Mayor Watson will say it's us, but it isn't. It's the cars. They smell.

Light Rail Meets Dark Shadows

This light trail thing in Ottawa is crazy.

Who knew catching up to Calgary circa 1981 would be so hard?

Not the smart money, that's for sure.

Step Aside, Andrew Scheer

I've found the next leader of Stephen Harper's Conservative Party of Canada:

Keean Bexte - COME ON DOWN!

Climate Changers

Waiting for a bus to take me to work in downtown Ottawa and watching all the single occupancy tank traffic go by makes me wonder how many of the drivers voted for the Green Party in the recent federal election that thankfully returned the Liberals to government. I can't imagine how depressing it would be to have Stephen Harper and his christo-fascist brigade in charge of our country again what with all those idiot premiers aiding and abetting in the looting of our public resources.

Name That Vendor

Oh don't bother.

Let us guess.

Does it rhyme with lazy?

Hazy?

Crazy?

Hey, isn't this the same sort of ratfuckery that Stephen Harper's chief henchman, Jason Kenney, er, Jason Kenney's vendor did to the other Conservative guy in Alberta? Brian Jean?

Seems like, anyway.

By the way, I read a piece this morning wherein an oil company guy is threatening that if the Conservatives don't win the oil and gas industry is going to pack up and move out of Alberta.

He didn't mention where it would go.

I bet Andrew Scheer voted for Trump.

Squeaky Wheels

I googled Alberta's population and all I got at first were a lot of projections, almost as if Alberta doesn't want to admit it's only 4 million people.

So smaller than British Columbia, which is about 4.5 million.

Quebec is double the size at 8 million, while Ontario is more than 4 times the size at 13.5 million.

The entire Maritime region is just over 2 million.

All the territories together are just over 100 thousand.

Manitoba and Saskatchewan come in at about 1 million each.

The above is according to the 2016 Census.

Justin Trudeau, like Hillary Clinton, is wearing a bullet proof vest now. That's because of Stephen Harper's Conservative Party of Canada and its violent and hateful supporters. Andrew Scheer's a shameless liar but it would be fun anyway if a reporter were to ask him if he voted for Trump. See if his nose grows when he deflects to Justin Trudeau.

Like Ra-aa-aaain on your Wed-ding Day

The Green Party has made me not believe in climate change.

It's an American front.

To kill our Energy Sands.

Q for Andrew Scheer

Did you vote for Donald Trump?

The Mysterious Mr. Scheer

Starting to wonder if maybe Andrew Scheer has a second family stashed somewhere that nobody thought to ask him about and so he hasn't mentioned it.

Crazy Shit Men Say

"I am personally opposed to abortion."

But you can't get pregnant, Andrew Scheer. So what you're actually opposed to is female persons living in Canada in 2019 having the legal right to terminate unwanted pregnancy caused by male persons - whether by accident or by force - safely and without financial penalty.

Use your words, please.

And there's nothing wrong with being a file clerk in an insurance office so why you would embellish it to broker is just bizarre. Every Canadian over 18 knows it's tough out there for anybody trying to get a foot in the paid work door and has been for decades. That you'd go from such a demoralizing experience to running for public office as a Conservative just shows that you didn't learn anything from it.

By the way, if you become Prime Minister and toss our physician assisted dying legislation instead of improving on it via expansion it will be a real shame. Had my mother known for several years before she finally qualified for it that she could have called her family around to see her out of this world with the assistance of a physician - at any time - it would have improved her quality of life significantly.

Jesus Christ I hope you lose.

In Other Words

Nancy Pelosi: "The Founding Fathers could never have imagined a president who claimed the Constitution empowered them to do what ever he or she wanted."

Donald Trump: "They did, though. Ask the religious people. They call me the Messiah of the United States. Some of my biggest supporters, the religious people. I love the religious people. And our Fathers. Nobody loves our Fathers like I do. But you know what I call Nancy Pelosi? I call her Not Nice Nancy. Because you know what? I liked Nancy. She's got money. Millions. Billions I've heard. But the fake news media, nobody ever goes after Not Nice Nancy's billions. Just me because I'm trying to bring peace."

Please, everybody - but especially Americans - the Founding Fathers would have voted for Donald Trump over John F. Kennedy because he was Catholic. Stop looking to the Founding Fathers for answers on Donald Trump. They did not foresee a situation whereby the Russian mob had taken over the Italian mob and was essentially the government of a freed Russia from the Soviet Union and that it would be electing presidents of the United States.

Oh my that was a mistake, eh? - the way the breakup of the Soviet Union went? Imagine how much better it would have been if Russia had gone socialist like Sweden instead of to whatever it went to.

But seriously, if Donald Trump doesn't end up in prison there's something wrong with the American justice system.

Not that ours is any hell.

Oh and thanks for ruining Canadian newspapers, Lord Black.

Red Scare at Swedish Teenager O'Clock

I think the smartest way forward re saving ourselves from our own filth is to stop trying to "get ahead". I mean, who are we trying to "get ahead" of, and what does it mean to "get ahead" anyway?

Of course, we don't need any more middle-class people, either, since middle-class people just increase our overall carbon footprint and vote Conservative.

Ugh. What a mess. The more wealth we have the bigger our carbon footprint and the more likely it is we'll vote Conservative.

On an unrelated note, I wonder how hard it would be for Greta Thunberg to turn the millennial vote Marxist. Like, if she wanted  to, and I'm not saying she does. Just, you know, I wonder.

Because if you ask me Marx's "each according to his ability, to each according to her needs" sounds about right.

Oh relax. Nobody ever does. Nor should they.

And They All Fall Down

Here it is, I guess: Ming Solenya Nethery

Hang 'em high.

Speaking of Treason

Why is Stephen Harper trying to tank Canadian markets all the time by giving speeches to Americans about how nobody wants to invest here? Like, is that legal? I mean, he was privy to all kinds of confidential information while he was Prime Minister of Canada, you'd think there'd be some kind of law, or at least a code of honour-

Haha - Stephen Harper - code of honour. Sorry, eh. I must have had rainbows and unicorns for breakfast.

Never mind.

From April 9, 2019 - Harper Shits on Canada in the US - Again

America, Land of Patriots

It's weird how the United States, what with that patriotism on steroids thing it has going on, can withstand so much treason. I mean, you'd think the thievery alone would have been enough for the Founding Fathers to rise from the dead, rip up the Constitution, and stomp back down to hell. But even daily televised treason with Vladimir Putin and a medley of mobsters doesn't seem to elicit much more than Americans dissing Nancy Pelosi online for seeming to base her strategy on that "driving to the Hamptons" episode of Seinfeld where Susan's parents out last George on his lie-a-thon about having a place in the Hamptons.

Black Like Conrad

So here's something to keep in mind if you bother reading convicted felon Conrad Black's hit piece on Justin Trudeau in the National Post - he and Barbara Amiel both show up in Jeffrey Epstein's little black book. As a couple, like.

Hey, I'm juss sayin'.

Men

I can't take lectures from men anymore on politics so I won't.

I don't care if Justin Trudeau was a douchebro. I don't care if he still is a douchebro.

Pro-choice, physician assisted dying legislation to get that ball rolling or tossed out by the Supreme Court, legal weed and it's working out in spite of those idiot thug premiers Canadians elect for some godforsaken reason, Feminism finally being the signature of a federal Canadian government, diversity and immigration and LGBTQ rights and awareness of the need for reconciliation with Indigenous Canadians being constants on the agenda.

Fuck off with your moralizing superiority, you privileged pricks.

Coynesplainin' Women of Colour

So last night I braved the news because I decided not to care if Stephen Harper who heads up a global outfit electing fascists in liberal democracies-

Oh, did I say Stephen Harper? I meant, Andrew Scheer. I decided not to care if Andrew Scheer wins.

Anyway, it was At Issue night on The National. Fortunately, I'm a Rosie Barton fan, so that part went well. She's the same. But then a weird thing happened where Althea Raj, of whom I'm a also a fan, said that Jagmeet Singh's second response to the photos of Justin Trudeau in blackface (the weirdest fucking thing to happen in Canada since Mackenzie King) was more calculated than his first response, which was more immediate (let's say). Then she qualified her statement to ensure viewers understood that she didn't mean calculated in a bad way because being more calculated isn't (necessarily) a bad thing.

At which point Andrew Coyne sort of interrupted her to say the exact same thing - without attribution - as if telling viewers that it's not necessarily bad for a politician to be more calculated in their response to another politician's incredibly offensive boneheadery come to light was HIS idea. And the rest of the panel, Chantal Hebert, of whom I'm also a fan, and a gentleman of whom I'm also a fan but have no idea of his name such that I can't even google him, didn't even slap him off his stool.

I think I would have. For sure Justin Trudeau would have. So there's that.

Mamas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Go to Private Schools

My take on photos of Trudeau dressed up in blackface, which certainly took me by surprise (I've only ever thought of JT as a wealthy douchebro, but a wealthy douchebro who grew up to say enough "right things" to get my vote - it never once occurred to me that JT was a complete idiot douchebro who dressed up in blackface ffs), is to note that his behaviour probably would have been called out AT THE TIME had he done such a thing at a public high school in Toronto (for instance) in the 1990s, let alone 2001.

Cripes, dressing up in blackface would have been called out at the Ottawa middle school my kids went to, never mind their high school. It really does strike me as a shockingly clued out thing for a student to do in the '90s, and certainly for a teacher to do in 2001, but there you go. Did it he did.

To me, then, this is a pretty good indicator of the problem with private schools. Sure, he went to Rockcliffe public school in his early years. But then he went on to do the private school circuit where he ultimately ended up teaching. And private schools both insulate and isolate wealthy kids from the rest of us, such that they end up living in a cultural bubble and getting away with behaviour that they wouldn't in a public school.

So there, a teaching moment, maybe.

Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to go to private schools.

Theme Party Blues

I have to admit, I want the Liberals to win a majority government again so I was a little nervous when that photo of Justin Trudeau showed up with him dressed up in... Aladdin face... Followed by the confession about singing "Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)" in costume and make-up.

But then he apologized, like he does, including agreeing that what he did was racist, albeit without the intent thereof, or some such spring forward/fall back, and I thought... oh well... who among us.

And then on Twitter, someone named James Bowie tweeted something about no politician being able to out-apologize Justin Trudeau, and anyway it's not like he compared being gay to being the leg of a dog. And then didn't apologize.

Bad News

It doesn't really matter because who cares about anything anymore but people are claiming to have canceled their subscriptions to the Globe and Mail because it printed an op/ed by Ezra Levant in which he apparently (I don't click on fake news so I didn't read it) argues he's a journalist deserving of credentials as such.

Sure, whatever. Everything is shit now, anyway, so why not add Ezra Levant to the pile.

All Hail Putin

By the way, Jason Kenney's reference to how Putin deals with environmentalists (and any Russian citizen fighting on behalf of human and civil rights/democracy) is a pretty obvious shout out to his white male Christian nationalist supporters that he, too, reveres Vlad as Dear Leader.

Move over, Stephen Harper.

9/11 in 2019

I notice this year 9/11 was played down and the focus put on the desperate plight of so many first responders to it instead. And great, because we need people to do their jobs in a crisis so we'd best look after them if/when doing their jobs makes them sick.

Meanwhile, I wonder how devastating a blow it will be to Americans if/when the arrow currently being drawn back from the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States in 2019 connects with those planes that were flown into the World Trade Center in 2001.

Manitoba of Magic Bean Dreams

So do Manitobans vote for Brian Pallister in hopes that he'll cut their taxes so low that they'll ALL be able to afford to live in Costa Rica?

Fake Good News

Damn it.

Read a good news piece that Justin Trudeau was going to let 100,000 Palestinians into Canada.

Turned out to be fake.

Mad Maxime

I always thought Maxime Bernier was just a not very bright guy who went into politics because that's what his dad did, and people elected him because he was good looking. But it turns out he's actually a frothing idiot who thinks teenagers being depressed, and maybe even developing eating disorders - because of catastrophic climate changes due to global warming - is crazy.

Cripes, I developed an eating disorder as a teenager and I don't even know why now but it wasn't because of something as devastating as climate change. And although I've never been depressed, as such, I've experience existential crises that lasted in one case for the second trimester of a pregnancy. So I can't imagine how difficult it must be for young people these days, with deranged psychotic men like Trump and Bolsonaro and Putin and Xi and Kim Jong-Un running our world into the ground.

Please, vote Liberal this fall. I know, I know. Just do it.

Despair Deza Debbie

This Donald Trump being president of the United States thing is the worst, eh? So racist and sexist and blatantly in-our-faces corrupt. And all because he's in debt up to his blown out sinuses to Russian mobsters. Oh well. Guess there's nothing for it but to watch while he pays it off by destroying America and maybe the whole world.

Meanwhile, Boss Putin is pretending a dozen nuclear accidents haven't happened in the past couple of weeks - including a nuclear reactor blowing up in the Barents Sea.

That's the problem with mobsters, Russian and otherwise. They're not just tacky money-laundering murderers who act like they come from a parallel universe 80s, they're own-nest-shitter-inners.

Today in: Use Your Words

I came across someone pointing out that ensuring access to abortion services for female citizens and granting marriage licences to gay citizens aren't "social issues", the namby pamby term being used to excuse Andrew Scheer & Co's illiberal views, they're hard won legal human and civil rights and important steps forward in advancing the individual rights and freedoms of ALL Canadians. No one should be running for public office in Canada in 2019 who doesn't recognize this and yet here we are. Again.

She's Baaack

But Susan Sarandon has moved on from accusing the Democrats of rigging their candidate selection process against Bernie Sanders, a socialist and non-member of the Democratic Party, to accusing them of rigging their candidate selection process against Tulsi Gabbard, Putin's Choice.

Split the Alt-Right!

I'm not a REAL political strategist but if I was I'd advise Maxime Bernier to be pro-choice in Quebec and anti-choice everywhere else. That way he'd get Andrew Scheer's Quebec white nationalist Conservatives AND Andrew Scheer's everywhere else white Christian nationalist Conservatives - thereby - splitting the alt-Right vote (both the Conservative Party of Canada and the People's Party of Canada are alt-Right) and electing a majority Liberal Party of Canada government again.

And I'm not even a REAL Liberal, that's how much I don't want to mess with a relatively decent thing when I've finally got it.

Cool

I'm cutting back on my "the world will end if we elect Andrew Scheer" schtick.

Why?

Because the Amazon is burning but the news is all about how the pictures being shared of it burning might be of some other out-of-control wildfire caus.

Fuck it. Toss those modern Liberals and bring back those old-fashioned Conservatives.

Also, Dear G7: Let Russia back in so we can all watch Trump hi-5 Putin because Bolsonaro set the Amazon on fire.

What do Russians think when they read people from countries that at least aren't run by the Russian mob

On a more local note, I finally feel like living in Ottawa is getting closer to living in a cool city.

Why?

Because Ottawa's lightrail system is operational September 14th.

Please, politicians - cool matters. Young people and financially literate people alike want cool.

And for the Amazon to not be burning.

A Reader Writes

Kidding, it's me, I read myself. But I wanted to share with you all a realization I had this morning re why I'm not joining Twitter - it's because I think I'm too good for it.

Imminent System Collapse Inc

I think we'll always be in a recession of sorts now that capital has replaced labour and all this blah blah from the media, corporate and otherwise, about imminent system collapse is just busywork clickbait for use by left and right parties trying to get into government so they can either nationalize or privatize more than Liberal parties do in government.

Myself I like owning a pipeline that gives me a stake in Canada's Energy Sands and I doubt very much that the NDP would have bought me one. For sure the CPC wouldn't have done. So I'm good.

Andrew Scheer Vs Canada 2019

There should be no such thing as a tax free savings account. I know people like them but I don't care. Grow up everybody and pay your taxes.

We live in a country where gay citizens are legally allowed to marry but Andrew Scheer opposes that right because he believes his God is opposed to it. We live in a country where pregnant girls and women have a legal right to abortion services but Andrew Scheer opposes that right because he believes his God is opposed to it. We live in a country where people on death's door have the right to ask for a physician assisted suicide - and it's not nearly enough - but Andrew Scheer even opposes that right because he believes his God is opposed to it.

We have legal weed but Andrew Scheer yadda yadda yadda God is opposed to it.

Ferchrissake, Andrew Scheer believes his God is opposed to people who worship a different God and to people who don't worship a God at all.

I really really really hope the citizens of this stupid country don't elect him Prime Minister.

Christmas Wish List

Just two things, no, three things, universe:

1)  Trump in prison with the whole gang before the end of 2019, because this is starting to look like there are just too many men in power who enjoy sexually assaulting people below the age of legal consent to take them all down and not upset the rotation of earth around the sun;
2)  Trump's big orange stupid face carved on top of the ground down faces of the other presidents on Mount Rushmore;
3)  Justin Trudeau is Prime Minister with a majority government (because fuck one issue parties - Liberals don't criminalize poverty and they don't cancel tree planting programs so go find another reason to be steal votes from Liberals so that Conservatives win and debase our country and everybody living in it again) - but - so embarrassed by all that ammo he handed to liberal Feminist haters on the left AND the right - that - he spends the next four years making it up to us - and then - passes the torch to... <drum roll, please ed.>  - Jody Wilson-Raybould (Raybauld?) and her friend Jane Philpott!

And they all lived happily ever after. The end.

Annnd... It's Team Jody on a TKO from the Sidelines

Holy-o-fuck, eh? I was totally counting her down for the count (on top of her good friend, Jane Philpott), but Jody Wilson-Raybould (Raybauld?) has emerged triumphant from the ring - thanks to a a knock-out punch delivered from the sidelines by a rule stickling government appointee, straight to Justin Trudeau's whopper-telling jaw.

Haha. Expect that guy axed after the next election. No matter who wins - Justin "fire that little shit about the ethics stuff" Trudeau or Stephen "hang that little shit about the ethics stuff" Harper.

I mean, Andrew "hang that little shit's kids about the ethics stuff" Scheer.

Kidding! I kid. Why, I even know a guy who worked for Andrew Scheer, once upon a time. And he didn't say anything ever that would suggest to me there was even the remotest possibility of Andrew Scheer becoming Prime Minister of Canada.

Whatever. Who cares if he does. Fuck that ethics report guy.

Please, New Democrats and Greens, stop playing this game of chicken with the Liberals.

Stephen Harper's job - his fucking job - is to elect as many sexist, racist, homophobic despots in our global village as he can.

So... SCHTAAAP!

Orange Alert

Conservative politicians are starting to terrify me.

Hang 'em High

Oh I say - wonder if this Jeffrey Epstein death while in US federal custody will be used as a bargaining chip by Julian Assange to keep from being extradited to the US from Britain.

Killer Cars

I want to know how it is that manufacturers can make cars that go faster than our speed limit of roughly 100km/hr.

Somebody should sue the bastards.

He Who Pulls the Trigger

When a socially isolated young man falls down an online white male nationalist ideology rabbit hole I doubt it takes very long to radicalize him.

So it's probably a minor miracle given the ease with which young American men can get mass shooting weaponry that there aren't even more deaths caused by white nationalism inspired mass shootings.

In the US it's the insane availability of guns, for sure, but the NRA (which we should all by know now has been laundering Russian mob money into the Republican Party for years) owns a lot of politicians - mostly Republicans, but Democrats, too, so effective gun control is a no go zone.

Heck, the NRA even owns the odd Social Democrat, I suspect.

Cripes, and never mind just American politicians, the NRA probably owns more than a few Conservative Party of Canada leaders. But without knowing who funded Stephen Harper's leadership campaign, that'll just have to be an educated guess.

They sure were keen to destroy our gun registry, though, weren't they, those Alberta Reform turned Conservative Party of Canada governing politicians.

But Toronto just experienced a terrible weekend of black gang violence, too, didn't it. Young black men shooting each other with illegally obtained hand guns. And bystanders have been killed in their supposedly targeted shootings, including toddlers and children on school buses, and are no less dead than the dead in the mass murders committed by young white male nationalists.

They seem to be acting out gangster life as depicted in some popular culture - The Wire? - but that's just what it looks like to me, maybe.

And then there are the men in their andropause years, so late 30s/early 40s, who use guns to murder women in or out of their lives, sometimes their children, too, before turning the gun on themselves.

Young men in Asian gangs, too, lest I forget - they've managed to kill a couple of children in their supposedly targeted shootings of each other, too, haven't they. That's up here in good old Canada, too, with our public healthcare and public education, although sure, gaps galore to fall through that our governments seem reluctant to fill by doing their jobs on behalf of everybody and not just wealthy corporate donors to political campaigns.

It's all terrorism, really, men using easily obtained guns - whether legal or not - to assume life and/or death power over the rest of us. I suppose when we aren't gunned down because of their misogyny or racism or just plain shitty aim/bad eyesight we should count ourselves graced by the universe.

Right, governing politicians?

Dear Stephen Harper

I'm curious, since you now head up a cabal that exists for the express purpose of electing authoritarian nationalist governments, what was the IDU's role in electing Donald Trump POTUS?

Asking for a friend.

Danger, Danger, Will Robinson!

We still don't know who funded Stephen Harper's leadership campaign but we do know that the #1 priority of the Conservative Party of Canada he created was to destroy our gun registry and all its data.

Because that's exactly what Stephen Harper's Conservative Party of Canada did as soon as it was able to cheat its way to a majority government.

How soon we forget the bribery, extortion, robocalling, Pierre Poutine, and silencing of public servants sworn to protect the public interest.

And Rebel Media isn't journalism. It's a bad actor, complicit in causing chaos and inciting white nationalist violence via the dissemination of fake news and white nationalist propaganda. And one of its founders is running the Conservative Party of Canada's campaign.

Other former associates of Rebel Media are intricately involved in the nightmare unfolding south of the border.

I'm reading now in the rabbit hole I fell down that the mass shootings in the US are coordinated, young white men targeted online for radicalization, local law enforcement corrupted by white male nationalist ideology, QAnon just one element of the conspiracy to cause mass casualties and death.

All of it, of course, promoted by Donald Trump 24/7 on Twitter and at his white nationalist rallies across the US.

And why is the supposed President of the United States 24/7 on Twitter and holding white nationalist rallies across the US.

Stephen Harper, the former Prime Minister of our liberal democracy, Canada, currently heads up an outfit promoting cooperation between white nationalist governments.

I think we seriously underestimate here in Canada the danger posed by politicians and their promoters on the Right.

These are not your Grandpa's Conservatives, people. Wake up, please.

Nice Life Ya Got There...

... Shame if somebody should break into your house and...

Donald Trump isn't attacking "Baltimore". He's threatening Elijah Cummings that he can have his house broken into any ol' time he wants and maybe he did just that.

He's a fucking mobster.

Kathryn's Annual August 1st Haiku

The cicada sings
Its dying song of summer
Die quieter please

The Deeper State

I read an interesting comment on a super creepy weird guy's Twitter I frequent to freak myself out on this Trump/Russia treason. It was to the effect that the Russians, in helping to elect Trump, may have - ironically - brought down that American criminal enterprise known as the Republican Party. The comment harks back to Lindsay Graham's desperate plea, once upon a time, "If we nominate Trump, we will be destroyed.... and we will deserve it."

In my opinion, Lindsay seems drugged to the gills since his 180 conversion to Trump-love, like he can't face the future sober anymore. If what I've read about him is true, and it includes rumours re kompromat involving minors but also Republicans involved in a very treasonous plot to sell American nuclear technology to the Saudi royal mafia, it's no wonder.

Anyway, the comment implies, too, that the Deep State (yes, brocialists, you are right, there really is a Deep State - thank goodness) let the 2016 election play out because the plan was always to get the Republican Party where everybody could see it. And then expose it. This is what makes sense to me, given that the Mueller investigation began almost as soon as the chock-a-block with fraud inauguration was concluded, which means that it was ready to go long before.

But who knows.

In the meantime, my advice is to ignore all those "nyah nyahers" online about Mueller's "just the facts, ma'am" appearance as the gaslighters they are.

Behind the Scenes of the Oval Office

Nothing. Save for a scrabbling sound. Like rats. Big rats. Adult human sized rats.

Baby Doomers, I Mean, Boomers

My Facebook feed is chock-a-block with friends, boomers for the most part, who are predicting end times are nigh.

No, not the Christian Apocalypse end times are nigh, Climate Change end times are nigh.

The most recent article making the rounds headlines thusly: "Twelve years to save earth? Make that 18 months..."

"Glad I don't have kids." is a comment I see quite frequently on these postings.

Anyway, I don't read the articles, just like I don't read the articles (anymore) from socialist FB friends about how neo-liberalism is destroying our world even faster than climate change is.

Well yikes, living the good life without working too hard, count me GUILTY of benefiting from neo-liberalism, I guess. Also, instead of making a sacrifice for the planet by not having kids, I had three!

There's just no way around THAT selfishness, I'm afraid. I don't own a car and rarely borrow or rent one, I almost never eat meat now, I don't even take up a job someone else can do just as well to spread the wealth, I rarely travel or shop. But none of those things are sacrifices because they're how I want to live anyway. No, the only real sacrifice I could have made re doing my bit to fight climate change, although I guess not neo-liberalism, is to not have kids. And that pretty much turns on its head everything we've heard since forever, doesn't it.

It's not selfish to not have kids, it's selfish to have them.

Good luck with that message to young women.

Heck, good luck with that message to their old mothers who want grandkids.

Really I think what's happening is that we're reaching peak boomer center-of-the-western-liberal-universe-ism, and instead of growing old and then dying with dignity, boomers are going to flood the internet - which is forever - with the message that, without them in it, there will either be no world or one that's not worth living in.

Of course, with their determination to elect a Conservative Party of Canada government again by not voting Liberal maybe their prediction will come true.

What?

I think I know why Robert Mueller was reluctant to appear before a HEARING.

Behind the Scenes of the Mueller Investigation

And Not a Penny Less

I think now that the appeal judge should grant bail to Jeffrey Epstein but set it at $100B.

See who's desperate enough to post it.

Then when he fucks off to Saudi Arabia, use the forfeited $100B to fund a basic annual income.

Also my theory is that Ghislaine cut a deal and ran.

Not Your Crazy Aunt Serenity's Green Party

Angry Uncle Frank-the-Trudeau-Hater's Green Party

So yeah, I'm enjoying Elizabeth May's messaging strategy, getting it out there to potential Green Party voters that their vote could help her prop up a Conservative Party of Canada government led by Andrew "Stephen Harper" Scheer.

Seriously, if he's not already, Justin Trudeau should be footing the bill for her messaging strategy team.

I'm not a REAL messaging strategist, but maybe the next step could be dinner in Moscow with Vladimir Putin. And then after that the launch of a social media campaign alleging a lack of chocolate milk in Canada's Food Guide may cause autism.

The Taunt is the Point

I don't like to get too involved with Donald Trump's distractions while he pretends to be POTUS but his racist taunt at the so-called Squad "If you don't like it, you can leave" struck me as particularly nasty because they can't. And he knows they can't. Because borders.

As everybody knows by now, only rich white kompromat gathering pedophiles can leave because all the countries of the world are apparently open to them.

But when ordinary decent people of limited means leave their country, they can just end up caged in another one, their children taken away from them - forever - and delivered unto who knows what.

Although sadly, I guess we have a good idea what now.

SAMS

1. I started writing this while CBC Radio was sharing a teaching moment ("All in a Day", the #1 choice of teen and young adults, er, I mean old people) about the perils of unprotected sex.

Because of antibiotic resistance.

So, CBC PSA, I guess: Stop having unprotected sex with people other than your partner of 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 years, CBC "All in a Day" listeners.

And stop having sex with him/her/they, too. What are you? A nymphomaniac?

2. Also, I think we need Donald Trump to have a reunion of The Apprentice so he can tell the entire viewing audience, "You're fired".

3.a)  Oh how I still loathe and despise those Bernie Bros. If Bernie Sanders had won there's no fucking way we'd be having the Mueller investigation (so 2 1/2 years of investigating how lousy with treasonous money laundering child sexual abusers the Trump & Friends show is) that now nobody can pretend didn't happen.

At least.

b) Of course, if Hillary Clinton had won, we wouldn't be having it, either. Because of the First Ol' Ball & Chain. (Full disclosure: I picture Hillary Clinton as Sam the Sheepdog and Bill Clinton as Ralph the Coyote in that Bugs Bunny cartoon: Hillary and Bill at Home.)

c) Theory: Bill Clinton's widely publicized "I'm being blackmailed because of kompromat" meeting on the tarmac with Loretta Lynch + James Comey's "Butter emails! Again!" were deliberately staged to make sure Hillary lost to Donald Trump. Bill because he was being blackmailed due to, at the very least, witnessing criminal activity in "Jeffrey Epstein's's" Sexual Abuse of Minors Society (SAMS) and not reporting it to the FBI (but he did way worse). And James Comey because the US Deep State (yes, Bernie Bros, you are correct, there is a US Deep State - praise be to the gods) wanted to show Americans that 1) Putin is fucking with their elections, 2) because he has so much kompromat on their overlords, 3) because they're a bunch of treasonous money laundering child sexual abusers.

Just like Putin but I guess Semion Mogilevich who has the kompromat on Putin just likes to watch.

d) Better late than never, I guess, for the Deep State to get on it. But Jesus Christ, seems pretty wrong to me, tracking the trafficking of girls (we're not hearing about the boys, for some reason, but since there were Republicans involved, too...) to rapists for decades on end before putting a foot down...

Irony Much, Friends of Jeffrey Epstein Society?

Sorry, other prisoners, but get used to hearing a lot of this from the orange guy with weird hair in cell block 6: "I was the best, I was the only, just me, it was all me, Obama didn't do it, he couldn't, only I could, so I did it - I drained the swamp!"

An Investor in Canada's Energy Sands Asks

I think it's fishy that instead of trying to get pipelines built and seek out new markets for oil from Canada's Energy Sands, former prime minister Stephen Harper spends all his time now building coalitions between authoritarian nationalist governments and treasonous Republican money launderers for the Russian mob.

How is schmoozing with Hungarian dictators and Larry Kudrow helping Canadian Energy Sands investors? Cripes, he went on and bitterly on about everybody and her grandma supposedly thwarting him back when he had a majority Conservative Party of Canada government and an Alberta Conservative government and a BC Liberal (so Conservative, too) government all on his side wanting pipelines built and new markets signed on for our oil.

Oh, and the Liberal Party of Canada, too.

Justin Trudeau as third party leader on the hustings: "There's not a country in the world that would leave all that oil in the ground."

I can't remember if Thomas Mulcair wanted pipelines built and new markets for our oil or not and I don't care so I'm not even going to google it.

Last I read, even Elizabeth May of the Green Party wants a pipeline built (and a refinery? because I want a refinery now, too, unless we have one already, I don't know, I'm new to being an investor in our Energy Sands) for domestic consumption of our oil.

So it strikes me as fishy how foreign hedge fund owned Conservative Party of Canada pamphlet producing Postmedia/Sun worked so hard to destroy Rachel Notley's NDP government of Alberta even though it was working so hard with Justin Trudeau's Liberal government (that it's also trying to destroy) to make real progress on both getting pipelines built AND finding new markets for our oil - that aren't the unreliable US or China (currently attempting to destroy our economy).

And now, Jason Kenney, formerly of Stephen Harper's no progress on pipelines and/or new markets for our oil majority CPC government (with the added very fishy sale of a portion of our Energy Sands to China, and see paragraph above), instead of (at least) following through if not expanding on Rachel Notley's NDP government's contracts to move oil by rail, is canceling them and wasting money - as did Stephen Harper - deflecting to bogus investigations into foreign funding of Canadian environmental groups instead.

How come Conservative politicians spend all their time and effort trying to defeat Liberal and NDP governments trying to get pipelines built and oil from our Energy Sands to new markets? And then when they do defeat them and form governments themselves, waste all our money looking for foreign funding of environmental groups instead of getting the job done for Canadian Energy Sands investors?

Like I say, it all seems very fishy now that I'm an investor in our Energy Sands, so as an investor I'm calling for an investigation into foreign funding of Canadian Conservative parties.

Because they don't seem to be working in my interests as an investor in Canada's Energy Sands at all and I'd like to know in whose interests they are working.

Canada's Energy Sands

I have a confession to make but first I'd like my NDP and Green friends to stop reading. Now, please. Just go about your protesting because this blog entry doesn't concern you.

Okay. Here goes, my Liberal and Conservative friends.

I recently invested not a lot of money, but I don't have a lot of money, in a conservative balanced mutual fund that includes Enbridge (because I'm a customer) and TransCanada (because my government purchased a yet-to-be-built pipeline).

It was a spur of the moment decision, a breaking free of a feeling of hypocrisy or something, but I'm really glad I made it now because it's broadened my political perspective like nothing I've ever done before.

I get it now, sister and brother Albertans, I get it. So mea culpa. I. Get. It. Now.

So in that vein, and I want royalties if it takes off, Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, I'm renaming OUR tar, er, oil sands - Canada's Energy Sands.

You're welcome, sister and brother investors.

Now let's get those pipelines built, baby!

Bill Browder on Vladimir Putin

Please watch this when you have a spare half hour. The other half hour is questions from the audience so if you have a spare hour even better.

Why the Magnitsky Act Matters

By the way, all that twittering about Ivanka trying to run with the bigwigs at the G20? I think she's there as a kompromat gathering device employed by the Russian mob.

So, you know, a prostitute.

I also think she was groomed for this role by her first pimp - Donald J. Trump, President of the United States of America.

Andrew Scheer

This is appalling to me, that Andrew Scheer would tweet this out for the world, so China, to read.

What a dangerous politician he is. Crazy. And stupid.

Andrew Scheer: "Please Don't Elect Me Prime Minister - I'm Hideous"

Young Things

I bet a lot of Canadians didn't and still don't think Justin Trudeau is old enough to be Prime Minister.

But he's actually pretty close to the age Pierre was when he became Prime Minister. And he's already married and has three kids and is world traveled and liberal and way the fuck more normal than the old man was. Or lots of other men, quite frankly. Certainly he's way more normal than most other politicians.

And yet the NDP has Jagmeet Singh, 38, and the Conservative Party has Andrew Scheer, 38.

I get why the Conservatives are running a 38 year old know nothing, because whoever pulled Harper's strings will just do a reach around to pull Scheer's.

But the NDP running Jagmeet Singh, a 38 year old newlywed, is just stupid.

Also, he doesn't want to be Prime Minister - not of Canada, anyway.

Ba da boom!

No, I didn't forget Old Lady May.

Kidding!

But seriously, all our pensions and RRSPs and mutual funds are invested in Canadian oil and gas prospects. What we don't need - especially now when it's not possible to make any real money unless you already have it - is everybody losing their shirt.

The Nazis are on the move.

Detention Camps

See what I did there? I said it's not "detention centers" or "concentration camps". It's "Detention Camps". And that wasn't even hard. All I did was take "detention" from "detention centers" and "camps" from "concentration camps".

Detention Camps.

Good enough.

That's what we in the real world say when we want to get something done, by the way. No, not Detention Camps, although... We say "good enough".

When we don't really care about getting something done, we argue about something else.

Please, people, if you're going to argue on Twitter, argue about whether it's good or bad that the US is handling (not very many people) arriving from more southern countries to the US border - by taking their children away from them - FOREVER.

And they're doing this before the real humanitarian crisis hits our part of the world (too) and people living in more southern regions start moving north because they can't stay put due to changes in weather cause by greenhouse gas emissions.

No. Stop it. It doesn't matter if it's man-made or not. It is, but it's the humanitarian crisis we need to be arguing about now.

And listen up, Canadians who vote for Conservatives, and also you stupid fuckwits at Postmedia and even stupider fuckwits at the Sun - you may not have a problem with Detention Camps south of that unprotected border we share with a population ten times our own, half of whom are armed to the teeth and so crazy for a straight white after life that they want to kill us all now - but the rest of us do.

And we will grind this economy to a complete goddamned halt so that you and the rest of us lose everything - everything - so we're ALL pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps to survive - if you push this bullshit too far.

And you're really fucking close to too far.

Puppet Politicians

It occurred to me today that the other mobsters must have a shit ton of kompromat on Doug Ford.

And that's when it all fell into place.

If you look closely, you can see the strings being pulled.

What makes me nervous is that Doug Ford, at least, wants to be liked.

The mobsters running the show behind him don't give a shit. They just want our money. All of it.

And then they'll finish what Mike Harris started and Stephen Harper continued.

Privatize our prisons, eliminate legal aid, criminalize poverty.

Conservatives aren't conservatives.

They're fascists.

A Look in the Mirror

So I'm coming out as a Big "L" Liberal. It's not a partisan thing because I'll probably (continue to) vote ONDP as it's now a stronger party than the OLP, and since there's no difference between the two that I care about, here's hoping Ontario elects Premier Horvath next go 'round.

Horwath?

I am NOT googling that spelling again. I've googled it a bazillion times already and I still can't remember the correct spelling of Andrea's last name. Clearly, the problem is hers.

It was so maddening, the last Ontario election, trying to figure out which candidate was the better bet to win in my riding - which is why Ontario is stuck with Premier Doug Ford - of all unimaginable fuckups.

Almost as bad as Alberta going from Premier Notley to Premier Kenney.

Worse?

Same as?

The only variance in political parties that matters to me is that which separates Conservative parties and the BC Liberals from better parties to occupy public office. That's because, essentially, Conservative politicians want to further privatize public space, dilute our Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and Republicanize our justice system, and I want more public space, reinforcement of our Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and an Indigenous model justice system.

They're old testament. I'm new testament.

But that's not really what this entry is about because this entry is about the Liberal government of Canada declaring a climate emergency AND approving a pipeline for construction.

For my more partisan NDP and Green and even some anti-Trudeau Liberal friends the pipeline approval cancels out the declaration of a climate emergency. But for me it accurately reflects Canada and Canadians and how we actually live our lives.

You know, as opposed to how we think everybody else should be living theirs, er, NDP and Green friends. (And none of this is to imply that I don't think you should be NDP or Green, that you, too, should be Big "L" Liberals. No, this is just about me and who I am - at this time, anyway.)

I don't really have Conservative friends but I think it's fair to say from the reaction of the politicians Conservatives vote for that Conservatives think declaring a climate emergency is... pandering to... the climate?

So to my point. A while ago I realized that I haven't made any personal sacrifices at all with regard to reducing my carbon footprint. I don't own a car, but I don't need to own a car and in fact don't want to own a car. Our little row house takes up less space than a single detached home in the country, but we're still taking up more room than we need. Or even want, to be honest. BUT, we don't want to rent out a room - or, more nobly, give someone a room for free - either. We love living together - alone. Not even one of my three adult children, who exist because I wanted them, do we want living with us. And by the way, the sacrifice for me would have been to NOT have any children at all. Or even just two. In fact, I wanted four but my co-creator of children, who was overwhelmed with three - didn't. And we have a dog, a hound/lab/beagle/? who eats and therefore poops. I don't travel much, as such, but travel is stressful for me anyway and I'd really like to give myself a year to not do anything much or go anywhere far following the recent physician assisted dying of my mother.

Speaking of which, I don't produce any medical waste but only because I've been fortunate enough so far to not encounter any health issues. (And this is why I don't often engage in discussions around privilege, who has it and who doesn't, because I know that if I had any medical issues of note I'd resent anybody who didn't telling me that I'm privileged - and on behalf of other people not even in on the discussion, ffs.) I rarely eat out but it's because I'm naturally frugal and know how to cook. Also, going out is increasingly falling into the travel category, in that it feels like something I should do more than it's something I want or need to do.

I don't shop retail for clothes but I can even buy swimsuits from the thrift shop now and they're the only items that seem to wear out. Even when I have a job I mostly wear my own version of a uniform, interchanging a couple of pairs of pants with a few shirts and a pair of dress shoes that look so classy I can run out the clock in any assignment just by staring at them for hours.

And so on and so forth and more of the same etc etc.

The thing is, though, that unlike an overwhelming majority of Canadians recently polled who claim to be on board with their government doing something about climate change because it's a real and increasingly (and exponentially so!) urgent problem, I would absolutely pay $100 (extra) per year to help out with mitigation efforts. And so would you because, like me, you wouldn't even consider that a sacrifice, you'd consider it an opportunity to do a bit of your bit. But we're apparently just 1 out of 4 Canadians - who otherwise share our view of climate change - who would.

And that's why I'm a Big "L" Liberal now.

Tough Gig

Now you've done it, people. Doug Ford was for you, for the people, remember?

He gave you booze.

But you repaid him with boos.

You're Not IN Traffic - You ARE Traffic

 Truer words we never think apply to us, eh?

So our street has become a temporary thruway while the usual thruway street one up from us is undergoing some sort of tearing asunder to do with below ground infrastructure.

It may or may not have to do with a private property development. I almost don't want to know, I'm so done with the cost of private profit for the rest of us.

Anyway, it's really shocking to witness how entitled drivers are to public space. It's like the families outside their buildings, trying to enjoy a bit of summer, are invisible to them. They honk their horns impatiently at each other, yell obscenities out their windows, blast their dismal choice of hate radio muzak.

Oh, and suddenly veer out of the gas guzzler line to speed down the narrow space between it and the parked cars such that if anybody in them were to exit they'd be killed instantly.

Small blessings, I guess.

But Ottawa's such a mess of public transportation woes (private/public partnerships are bullshit from start to delayed and over-budget finish but so it goes in politics now - everybody's a bizz whizz) that when I alert our councilor to this mayhem it's likely to land on quite a stack of more pressing woes.

I'm afraid, though, that since drivers appear to leave their humanity behind on the curb when they enter their gas guzzling tank of choice and take over our public space like it's their private speedway, someone really is going to be killed. We already don't have sidewalks and a lot of the residents here are more recent arrivals with children who play outside. And a lot of us don't have cars so when we leave our residences it's to navigate our neighbourhood on foot.

It's so unconscionable, how people behave behind the wheel. Please think about others when you drive. Really, slow down, calm down, and be aware that you're taking up more than your fair share of public space when you add your vehicle to it.

#TimesUpForNo#MeTooInProSports

Oh how I loathe and despise hockey and don't care for baseball or that new girl in town - basketball, either. Also football and bowl, er, curling.

But I do enjoy that the Stanley Cup may or may not be over (so that CBC news is reliably available over the public airwaves) and I don't even know who won because it's all "Raptors, Raptors, Raptors."

Of course, the joke's on whoever won the Stanley Cup anyway because, haha, we're all winners now that Donald Trump is President of the United States.

#MAGAbitchezzz

Pam Palmateer Responds to Public Opinion

This column in Macleans by Pam Palmateer is so good: Shut Your Festering Gob, Settler

She's much more generous here than I would be, though:

Even Angus Reid himself seems to have difficulty accepting the racist undertones of his poll’s findings; he says he does not consider the Canadians who hold these ideas to be “racist,” but instead “hardliners” who don’t think more money is the answer to growing poverty in First Nations. It’s a surprising conclusion given the over-abundance of research and data that shows just the opposite.

Jesus Christ, Angus Reid. Shut your festering gob, already.

Tanya Tagaq on Word Games

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Lordy, I Hope There Are Tapes

I don't mean to brag but I swam outside yesterday and today. The water was almost as cold as ice (hey Randy, my Saturday night CBC radio man - ice is a great theme for a show) but I'm sixty so it didn't matter.

Cold? You call this cold, Nature Under the Influence of Climate Change? Don't make me laugh.

I went through a winter in Sault Ste. Marie wearing red (suede) addidas and a jean jacket.

But my big news - because I know you want it, the real deal, not that fake shit from the gliberal media - is that last night our members elected a new committee to run our housing association so I could finally resign from it as I've wanted to for some six or seven years now.

Litigious people, I think, are the worst people in the world.

And that's why we don't like lawyers until we want to sue somebody.

Kidding. I'm a woman. I can't imagine having that kind of time and money to waste. Baby's gotta eat. That's why I didn't want to be on our committee anymore. It's a volunteer position from which I benefit not at all, and in fact endure an incredible amount of stress, and yet, there's always one asshole member of an association who just wants to sue somebody for something.

I mean I benefited absolutely zero. Sure, there are committee members who enjoy this or that perk, maybe if it's just strutting around the 'hood believing yourself to be important. But I didn't even have that. Instead, I didn't want to go outside.

The people who most caused my distress? Conservatives, of course - AND - the people the NDP thinks are NDP but who are actually Conservatives.

And that's why I'm voting Liberal (federally) for the rest of my life unless I move to B.C. or maybe Alberta.

So don't call or write, federal NDP and CPC.

You can write, Green Party, but I probably won't read it.

And finally, because it's Friday night and Heartbeat will be on TVO at 9, CBC's website has an article today whereby Eric Grenier, its pollster, reports on Doug Ford's popularity/lack thereof, and a paid shill from Doug Ford's campaign says don't believe your lying eyes, anybody reading this, because everybody loves Doug Ford now and everybody will love him even more by the end of next year.

Oh, and not to be... gossipy, but, I think Justin Trudeau and Emmanuel Macron are in love with each other. For reals. Like... I want you in me plus I love you because you are me kind of in love.

It's a love that can ONLY exist between two men, by the way. Sorry, but give it up, straight couples. It's never going to be like that for us.

Seriously, watching those two hug each other actually grew my inner penis about three inches.

Feel free to comment.

No don't. I celebrated 4/20 today.

Oh. My. Gord. Free at last, free at last, free at last.

Some day I'll write a book about being on a housing association committee and you can buy it.

Make me rich.

The Age of Stunt Politics

So yeah, we're well into the Age of Stunt Politics, but I'm hopeful it will soon be on the wane soon.

I don't know why I'm hopeful, but I am. I may just be losing my mental faculties. Certainly it wouldn't be surprising after two and a half years of Donald Trump sucking all the oxygen out of the world.

This isn't really a political post, although it kind of is, I guess, but I wanted to share a thread on Twitter I came across this morning, pointing out the opening line of a speech by Andrew Scheer that was supposed to reassure us the Conservative Party of Canada isn't the party of White Incel Nationalists.

Hey - WIN.

The speech was the result of an improv performance by one Michael Cooper at a justice committee hearing the other day examining online hate. I'm not sure what his point was, beyond personifying the problem for everyone by behaving like a typical rightwing troll, but enter Andrew Scheer to...?

Well you be the judge as Norlaine Thomas on Twitter breaks it down from the opening salvo, "We are all children of God": Okay, you fuck off now, hear?

As far as I can tell, Scheer's a member of a Conservative Christian sect that pretends to be under attack by others/us because of the religious beliefs of its adherents, when what's actually happening - and Scheer knows this - is that others/we are objecting to discrimination by the state that's almost entirely due to the embedded influence of Conservative Christianity in politics and society.

For whatever reason or lack thereof, Scheer et al don't like the prospect of everybody living free of discrimination from the state. I honestly don't know why they don't like it, but they clearly don't. And I believe, if he becomes Prime Minister of Canada, Scheer will devote his efforts to shoring up that embedded influence in ways both seen and unseen, while doing what all Conservative politicians do now as a matter of course, which is to eliminate public space by privatizing it.

And maybe I'm misreading his lips but it seems to me he's giving us a pretty good heads up on his intentions.

Stranger Things

It's funny, I'm not normally a fan of Elizabeth May, although I'm probably most suited to the Green Party, but I really like her idea that we (Canada) ban all foreign oil imports (and I assume Canadian oil exports? exception the US?) and go all in on Canadian oil production for Canadians.

I know, I know, climate change, eco-collapse, blah blah blah. But while we await doom it would be really good for Canadian unity, I think. Because what we're doing now isn't working and we need to take the wind out of the sails of Conservative politicians who capitalize on social divisions.

It's an ironic world, baby.

Speak Up, Dammit!

If you're a politician in Canada and you believe that every Canadian girl/woman should have access to publicly funded abortion services then you need to speak up. You have the privilege of a voice. Use it. And please, adding in the belief that you're personally opposed to abortion is not only irrelevant, but you're fooling yourself and betraying all those girls and women who have made the choice to terminate an unwanted pregnancy by pretending to have superior morals to them.

You don't. Having religious beliefs does not make you morally superior. Oh boy does it not make you morally superior. In fact, having religious beliefs seems to mean defending the right of religious organizations to discriminate against female and LGBTQ citizens, which is objectively morally wrong.

There's only one reasonable position to have on the right of every Canadian girl/woman to terminate an unwanted pregnancy via a publicly funded healthcare provider, which is that you support it. As long as boys and men can impregnate women but not be impregnated themselves, anything less than ensuring the right of girls and women to terminate that pregnancy is discrimination based on sex and a violation of a person's right to not reproduce on behalf of the state.

Well you're the state, sisters and brothers. Stop letting anti-choice politicians and pundits terrorize Canadian girls and women with the threat of abortion re-criminalization.

Speak up, dammit!

Ew

That's all, really. I had no idea Mike Pence was coming to Ottawa until he was here, because I haven't been paying attention, and now I just want him to fuck off back to the U.S.

Closeted Conservative politicians are the creepiest politicians.

Answer Me These Riddles Three

It was nice to hear from the Saviour of the Free World, Robert Mueller III, today, wasn't it?

Cripes, imagine being Robert Mueller III for the past two years. I mean, pressure much? You'd think he'd want to be cased in armour, too.

But if I was Robert Mueller III I think I'd have left us puzzling a little bit more:

"Let me sum up my report for you by paraphrasing the Good Witch, Glinda, to Dorothy in Oz, re tapping her red shoes together three times to get home to Kansas: "You've always had the power to get home, my dear, you just had to learn it by paying me to write a report to remind you that we have a democratic method for dealing with treasonous piece of shit criminals who get 'elected' POTUS."

Is it my lying eyes or did he look irked to be having to speak out loud into a microphone at a podium in Washington with every sentient being from everywhere across the world parsing his every word.

How either arrogant or modest is that, eh?

But imagine being Robert Mueller III in the 80s, all lantern jawed law and order Vietnam War hero, while Donald Trump, treasonous piece of shit criminal, is being glamorized on the nightly news.

That must have irked him some, eh?

Full disclosure: I've always had a vague awareness that Donald Trump existed but I had no idea, he's Don Cherry - but worse.

Not as bad?

Jesus. Can you imagine if Don Cherry was Prime Minister while Doug Ford is being Premier of Ontario and Donald Trump is being POTUS?

Count your fucking blessings, Dippers and Greens!

Which reminds me, -isn't it nice we can all console ourselves with the knowledge, as imparted to us by our socialist and libertarian bros betters, that Hillary would have been worse...

Life, Take Eleventy Seven Hundred and Two

This is day two of not logging on to the internet when I first get up in the morning. I just now checked my email, and although there was something there that on first reading seemed in urgent need of a response, I decided on second reading that, not only was it not in urgent need of response, it wasn't even my place to respond to it.

So I'll wait my turn. It's a thing working-for-money people do to other working-for-money and not working-for-money people alike, assign us work from their to do list in hopes that we'll not do that second reading and realize, wait, do I work for you? No, no I don't. In fact, I think you actually work for me, so, hm, let me go make some lunch and check back tomorrow to see what's what. Maybe.

My goodness email is bossy, eh?

Before that I read some more of Lord of the Rings, my current project now that I've read all five Game of Thrones (skimming whole swaths of certain character's stories because jesu christo enough already). I'm three hundred and fifty pages in to The Fellowship of the Ring and it has finally become somewhat interesting. We'll see. I do find it pleasurable enough, it's like being a kid again, how Tolkien sets the reader in the scene, but I doubt more than a handful of kids today could endure to Gandalf's story that leads to Frodo stepping up to deal with the ring.

I also read about the Winnipeg Strike, which was in the Saturday Globe. Also, some week old columns about our government's foreign policy gaps and faux pas, gaps and faux pas that trace back to the previous government's kamikaze ideology, and some business articles.

I almost have a fear, I think, of understanding how money works in this country. I don't know why that is but I really do resist understanding stock markets and takeovers and start-ups and so on and so forth and more of the same etc etc.

Anyway, on tap for today, I think, is making roman blinds and prepping some walls for painting - assuming I don't check out what's happening online and fall down a rabbit hole or two. It's a challenge but I need to figure out how to keep the screen front and center so that I don't forget it's there. Some of you know exactly what I mean by that. If you don't, count yourself a lucky well-adjusted person.

Er, Update

Well, I guess I'm not a REAL political forecaster, am I, because Jody and Jane are running as Independents in the next election and not as Greens, as I forecast in "And Then We Riot" yesterday.

Who knew they both wanted to do politics differently by not being part of a team?

Oh yeah, anybody who's been paying attention.

My bad.

But as luck would have it this is good timing, being wrong, because I've been wanting to step back from commenting on politics for years now, and I think I might finally be bored enough to do it.

It's the arguing at people with whom I more or less agree that's done me in.

Also, the other night I had a dream that I was in the Sault. It was evening and I was out for a walk when I decided to surprise my mother at her nursing home with a visit. But partway there I remembered she was dead. And although I was relieved by this, because in the back of my mind I was wondering if I should spring her, I also thought, well, so I'll visit another old person at the nursing home. Because it's not like everyone in a nursing home couldn't use a visit by someone from the outside world. So I continued on but when I got there I found I didn't have much to offer by way of news. None of it seemed relevant.

I always thought that one of the hardest things for my mother was being a political person who wasn't online.

Now, of course, I feel like a complete idiot.

Anyway, I shook up my routine today by not going online first thing when I got up to CHECK OUT WHAT'S GOING ON!!!!!!!!!!!! and instead read the Saturday Globe. Well, wouldn't you know that in the Pursuits section was a whole piece by Nathalie Atkinson "Reclaiming Your Time" that made my choice seem like serendipity. And so, yes, here I am online blogging about it because that's news worth sharing - right? That's what I like to read when I go online, tidbits from people about how they're living a better life because of this or that. And I know it's just mid-afternoon on the day of what probably seems to you to be a minor change in routine, but, oh my goodness, what a difference it seems to have made in how I feel.

Quite a while ago now I stopped checking out a couple of places on the internet that I realized weren't doing me any good to check out. And almost immediately they ceased to matter. It was that quick. But then a while ago I strayed from my daily check in with the Americans I follow on the Mueller investigation to check out what was going on with (what I call) the GenJs (Jody, Jane, Justin) and there it was, that same sucking in that is oh so incredibly addictive to some of us. And it's all just toxic nonsense, as I realize now that Jody and Jane, a couple of normal every day politicians, who chose to run for public office as Liberals in the last election, have held press conferences to let us know that they'll be running as Independents in the next one.

Oh. Well. Alright then. Carry on. As you were. Nothing to see here.

So what the hell was I worked up about?!

Somewhere, my mother is laughing.

And Then We Riot

So just did a cruise around Twitter and the gossip looks to be like Jody Wilson-Raybould and her friend Jane Philpott will announce on Monday that they're running for the Green Party in the next federal election.

Anyway, given that Elizabeth May recently stated that Justin Trudeau is more polarizing than Andrew Scheer, I'm going to guess that she's bought in to whatever the two Js are selling - which seems to stem from a personal falling out with JT and subsequent desire to torpedo his career - and believes the Conservatives should replace the Liberals in government with her Green Party playing the role the NDP usually plays.

That would be the "see how right we are you should have voted for us instead of the Liberals, Liberals, and then we'd be the government instead of the Conservatives" role.

I don't know, or care much anymore - people will vote how they will vote - but I note that Elizabeth May's new husband, who looks suspiciously like Sir Anthony Hopkins, is running as a Green Party candidate now, which kind of makes the Green Party even more the Elizabeth May Party than ever. Add in Jody Wilson-Raybould and Jane Philpott and I guess you could add "and Friends".

So, The Elizabeth May and Husband and Friends Party.

Personally, I lean Green like a mean fighting machine, but politically, I've decided to reward Justin Trudeau's version of the Liberal Party for being unequivocal that it's pro-choice, for making a point of having a gender balanced cabinet and referring to himself both at home and abroad as a Feminist, and for legalizing marijuana and physician assisted dying.

But you can't always get what you want, and if we end up with another federal Conservative Party of Canada government playing politics with our lives, we'll just have to head out into the streets and riot, I guess.

Because that's the thing - there will be nothing else for it.

Get your placards ready.

"And Randy Will Be By Later to Break Your Knees, Okay?"

So I listened to Doug Ford threaten a constituent in a voicemail this morning. It should be shocking but of course it isn't. Kathleen Wynne warned at the outset of the last campaign that he's a bully, but by that time the sexist and racist Sun had been itself bullying her for so long that we all just wanted to look away.

I remember seeing Sun covers in the newspaper box when I'd be waiting for a bus and realizing that nothing had changed with the men (and women!) who own and work for it since they were publishing the names of men caught in bathhouse raids back in the '80s.

Anyway, my guess is that Doug Ford records the phone numbers of callers to be added to a party database for use at a later date and that's why he encourages constituents to call him personally. It's shameful, the bullshit he spews, while party operatives loot and pillage our province.

Anyway, today's Conservatives shouldn't be anywhere near power, but what can we do when Liberals and New Democrats and Greens all run candidates to compete against each other, as if each other is the enemy and not the men (and women!) who just want to get their greasy paws on all that public money.

It's the only reason they run for public office, you know, to get their greasy paws on all that public money. They don't want to govern. Government is in their way. They just want to get their greasy paws on all that public money.

Ixnay on the Incelay

Starting to wonder if we should alert the RCMP about Maxime Bernier. Seems like after losing the Conservative Party nomination to Andrew Scheer he might have become radicalized online.

#WeToldYou

Okay, Canadians, just a heads up that we in Ontario are at the "Who's Worse: Mike Harris? Or Doug Ford" stage.

And Doug Ford is winning.

Even though sister and brother citizens actually died because Mike Harris was Premier.

So, if you didn't like Stephen Harper being Prime Minister of Canada, you know, because of all the lying, cheating, bribery, and fraud - with moralizing about Conservative values on top - my advice is to not elect Andrew Scheer Prime Minister of Canada.

Signed,

Ontario resident

Wave Back

I wasn't going to say anything but what the hell it's just the internet - keep an eye out for men cheer leading Feminists calling out liberal Feminists on abortion.

And why will Feminists be calling out liberal Feminists on abortion?

Well, because liberal Feminists, with regard to abortion, are about protecting the right of the individual female person - in a world run by men - to end an unwanted pregnancy, safely and legally and within our universal healthcare system. But there are certainly other Feminists, Feminists who wouldn't describe themselves as liberal Feminists, who are about representing their communities, communities that have experienced neglect and oppression by our governments, and they don't necessarily share the liberal Feminist position on abortion - for reasons that stem from that neglect and oppression.

I can certainly respect that. I also know that the position I take in public is more nuanced in private, so maybe it's the reverse with Feminists from, for instance, Indigenous communities. I don't know.

(For the record, I take my Feminist cues from Gloria Steinem and my intersectional Feminist Facebook friends, not the racist Famous Five statue on Parliament Hill.)

What I don't respect, and I hope if you're on Twitter you'll call them out for me, is men (and they're pretty much always white political pundits) coattailing on Feminists from those communities to attack liberal Feminists.

Because these men have no shame, they just have it in for liberal Feminists, and so they will use the opportunity to accuse liberal Feminists of being either fake or racist or both, pretending that we do derive our liberal Feminism from the Famous Five and not Gloria Steinem and our intersectional Feminist Facebook friends.

Anyway, I'd say it goes back to Justin Trudeau telling prospective nominees to the Liberal Party to be pro-choice or fuck off to another party, and how certain white political pundits hate him for it, but you probably guessed that already.

#ImNotAFakeFeministYoureAFakeFeminist