NRA! NRA! NRA!

Hey I just want to point out to all you Mueller naysayers out there in Naysayerville that the NRA, the most powerful lobby in all of American politics ever, has been very quiet for some time now.

Bernie's Moscow Honeymoon

Hey, I just figured out why Bernie Sanders voted against the Magnitsky Act.

There's video of his honeymoon in Moscow.

Jesus I'm smart.

Comedians in Climate Destroying Cars

So I realized today that this gloom and doom environmentalism I subject myself to on a daily basis - hello social media - is really quite sexist. Indeed, it came to me in a flash today that, at its core, the environmental movement is yelling at girls and young women that it's wrong for them to want to bring children into this dying world.

Well the world has been dying since forever. Social media just amplifies its death throes.

I remember how much I wanted children once I wanted them. I also remember having a couple of guilt trips laid on me for my selfishness, as if I wasn't aware of the state of the world, as if it didn't sadden me that the big mammals were threatened with extinction everywhere.

So I tried cloth diapers for the first week while my nipples were cracked and bleeding from breastfeeding. Then I wrote a letter to Michelle Landsberg, who had a column at the time in the Toronto Star, about how sexist cloth diapers were. My point was how hard it already was in a society that expected too much of us. We didn't need to be blamed for Toronto's landfill problem, too.

She got it, too, and referenced part of my argument in a later column, even taking my side. 

Anyway, now those children I had are young women (and a young man) and they're surrounded by guilt trip layers and it irks me that they are. So I'm going to tell them and all the other young women I meet hither and yon to close their ears to the gloom and doomers and do whatever the fuck they want.

Even if I don't actually do it I know that it's the only way to live this life - do whatever the fuck you want.

By the say, full disclosure, I'm pretty sure this realization came to me today from watching Comedians in Cars earlier with my eldest. Jerry Seinfeld is awful but it's my kind of awful, an awful I find incredibly life affirming. Jerry Seinfeld doesn't even pretend to give a shit about anything except what he does give a shit about.

So refreshing.

The Republic of Albertastan

From the old stock Boomers to the middle stock GenXers, it looks like it's deja vu all over again at Conservative Party of Canada Inc.

Indeed, Stephen Harper's Firewall Letter has been updated to Michelle Rempel's Buffalo Declaration.

Cripes, 4 million people and I can't think of any Canadians outside of Quebec (double the size at 8.5) who've had this much attention from a federal government ever.

PMJT bought us Canadians a pipeline whether we wanted one or not, ffs.

Hey, that makes me wonder - Stephen Harper's CPC Inc. maybe doesn't like that Canadians own the TransCanada pipeline instead of a foreign multinational corporation, eh?

Just a thought.

Also, Conservative politicians, especially Michelle Rempel, seem to hate Justin Trudeau for reasons that have nothing to do with the economy, but whatever.

Disability Matters

Looks like Doug Ford has decided to shake down Ontarians on disability.

Imagine being hounded by a collections type agency with all the powers of government behind it and having to prove over and over and over again that you need money to pay for rent and food because you're unable to find and keep paid work due to your physical and/or mental health challenges.

People will suffer and die due to this ill-conceived contracting out of our social services so I hope the media names all the names of the profiteers who will be paid bonuses for doing this devil's work.

Aaaannd It's Rantin' Gramps for the Win

There was a guy this morning yelling at people on their way to work, "Quit yer fucking jobs! We gotta crash the economy!"

I figure he was a Bernie Bro wandered north of the border.

But seriously I think this strategy of Bernie Bros behaving like 'roidal dicks is paying off in spades. Americans are attracted to winners and Bernie's acting like he's already won this shit show.

And Geez Louise but stick a fork in his competition already.

Rantin' Gramps for President it is.

Holy Mitt, Batman

I'm not a Bernie Sanders fan because I worked for socialist men back in the 80s and they turned me Liberal - but - I do concede that he could well win this Democratic Party shit show.

But it confuses me why Canadian socialists think the broader American public will elect a socialist - excuse me, democratic socialist - President, when Canadians won't even elect a New Democrat Prime Minister.

And Jesus Christ but if I had thought in 2015, 16, 17, 18, and 19 that I'd still be arguing about Bernie vs Hillary vs Trump in 2020, I'd have hacked a hole in the ice of the Ottawa River and jumped in.

I do like this new Hillary, though, who's finally figured out that it doesn't matter what she says or does, men on the left and men on the right and no doubt men in the middle, too, hate her. And they hate her more than they could ever hate a man, even Donald Trump.

Anyway, that's not what this entry is about because this entry is about a move I see coming from the dark side, which is that the Republican Party is waiting to see if the Democratic Party is incompetent enough to nominate a geriatric Che Guevara, before dumping Trump and nominating Mitt Romney.

Answer me these riddles three

I just heard Peter MacKay accuse the Liberal Party of being ideologically driven.

To which I have one question, Peter MacKay.

No, two.

1) Do you know what ideology is; and
2) Name the ideology you think is driving the Liberal Party.

I miss your wife and family already.

Physician Assisted Goodbyes

I'm posting this column by Michael Coren because I love a good redemption (Michael Coren) and it's another opportunity to tell my reader(s) what a privilege it is to be able to see someone out at a physician assisted death. As I've written here before, our federal government simply must improve on the current legislation, which is cruelly restrictive. And our provincial governments must improve on palliative care and nursing homes, which should not have even a whiff of profit connected to them.

This isn't hard. If we could trust profiteers to look after the most vulnerable citizens among us, we'd be living in an entirely different society than we do.

Holy Takes

But Why?

I guess the question I have for Bernie Sanders diehards who are so convinced that the DNC is rigging primaries against the only one of its candidates who can supposedly beat Donald Trump (not that he'll be in the running, I don't think, but I didn't think he'd have lasted this long, either, so what I should probably spare myself and stop thinking) is: Why?

It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World So Repeat After Me

The job I'm currently doing to make money is a daily reminder that for a lot of my co-citizens, navigating their way through life in this complicated, and increasingly unresponsive and unaccountable society we've boxed ourselves into, is too much. And I know, myself, when My Blond Companion and I had to deal with a minor financial injustice recently, I ended up with a kidney stone, so stressful was it for me, and I'm a citizen of privilege in pretty much every way possible.

We were in the right, but it didn't matter. I'd gone down that road people like me sometimes go down and couldn't see the harm I was doing to myself in seeking that elusive vindication of justice being served, because if you're going to head down that road, you have to keep both perspective and a sense of humour, and I'd left both those essentials behind.

So personal lesson learned, I thought, when we just sucked it up and paid the money not owed.

Alas, no, because the only thing that really works - and I should have known this because I've put it into practice before with remarkable success to my health and well-being - is to recognize that everybody suffers the odd injustice here and there via our interactions with each other, deal with it (however you prefer to deal with these sorts of things), and then wish everybody involved well, including yourself. Seriously, just do it. It's the best antidote ever.

And then be kind, be kind, be kind, and so on and so forth and more of the same etc etc, because we all benefit from kindness.