Sunday, June 30, 2019

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.

Wednesday, June 26, 2019

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"

Tuesday, June 25, 2019

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.

Saturday, June 22, 2019

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.



Wednesday, June 19, 2019

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.



Tuesday, June 18, 2019

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.