Category Archives: Social Constructs

Catching Up, bits and pieces

Posted on July 28, 2025 | Leave a comment

It wound up being a few weeks between posts for some understandable reasons. Canada Day I was dropped by a hard, nasty cold. Doctor visits, meds, etc. Felt like a complete bag of shiite for two weeks and even then another week to recover enough to go back to work. No excuses, just illness, but I’m fine and back on the horse.

It’s too easy to finish up a week, park your ass on the sofa and become a farting lump of humanity that only moves to eat, excrete or struggle to find the remote. Then come Sunday around 4 pm, recognize that you’ve blown a whole weekend doing nothing, contributing nothing and accomplishing nothing. We’re making an effort to do ‘something’ every week, so we’ll catch you up with some short snappers.

Wes’ Chips. If you only know french fries from Mickey or the King, we mourn for you and your poor palate. Chip Wagons are indispensable, as they provide a very high quality product. Wes’ Chips in

Arnprior Ontario has been around since the dawn of time. Big bags of potatoes go in the back, perfect french fries come out the front. You can tell it’s the real deal if they ask you “Halfway?” even if it is a size small. “Halfway” to translate from chip truck slang, means, we’ll fill it halfway, hand it to you to add your toppings (salt and malt vinegar please) then you pass it back to the counter person who fills it the rest of the way up. Then you dose the rest of it. It’s not me saying it, it’s a God thing: In Fallopians 3:17, to quote: “The halfway is the way of the Lord and merchant who does not, shall be cast unto the fire” I don’t make the rules…

Countryside. With all the technology grabbing at our eyes, algorithms designed to frustrate, reward then frustrate again, we forget to do the basics. Basic #1 is this: Look out the effing window!

We live in Ontario, which is stunningly beautiful if you look out the window. Drive somewhere, eyes up out the windshield. See the hills, trees, houses, farms, birds, cows, pigs. We joke about the big round white poly-wrapped hay bales as being part of the early marshmallow crop.

Take the back road you don’t know, or tell your GPS voice to get stuffed. It will recalc if you want to go elsewhere, or just go home. Buy some veg from a farm stand. Part of our trip to Lake Huron involved us covering part of the Butter Tart Trail. Destinations abounded and then rewards of butter tarts, several of which are residing comfortably in our freezer for later. Did we see all kinds of beautiful pieces of Ontario that we didn’t know about? Sure did, picked up a couple of t-shirts and shot the breeze with the locals here and there. Even talked with some Americans who were up being tourists. We did welcome them, as we are Canadians and polite. They did apologize for their Toddler-In-Chief and we replied that we like you, just not that asshole. They agreed, we shook hands and life went on.

Eganville. Small town north and west of Ottawa, in the heart of the Ottawa Valley. It’s a ways from the Trans Canada, Highway 17, so it is back in the bush, not gravel roads, but a bit off the usual. A pretty little town on the Bonnechere River and they held their Taste Of The Valley event last weekend. Various artists, weavers, jewelry makers, pet treats, soaps and lotions. Sunshine, food and as added hook, an old colleague of mine from television days (’81 to ’88) lives up that way. We semi-stay in touch over social media but have not actually seen each other for close to 30 years. We dragged our various spouses along, prefacing things with “You both will be bored to shit, as we talk ancient history” Spent a lovely hour and change catching up and NOT boring our spouses. I call that a win.

That is the sort of pleasure of Countryside Basic #1. You never know what will show up, or who will show up. You get to enjoy the scenery, disconnect a bit and share some experiences. Can you do it yourself? Do you have a bicycle, or access to transit? One I’d like to accomplish, probably in the fall, is use a day off, get a day pass for OCTranspo and ride the whole length of the LRT. Might take a couple of hours, north-south-east-west and see the stations, as well as parts of the city I haven’t been to in years. Plus, my taxes are paying for this shit, so I might as well take a ride on it and see what we paid for. I may be pleased, or I may be aggravated. Who knows.

If you’ve got a trip, or an idea, comments are always welcome, but keep the scope close to your home. Yes, I would love to fly to Nepal and hike up a mountain for complete enlightenment, so let’s keep it local and a daytrip.

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Our Regularly Scheduled Programme

Posted on June 27, 2025 | 2 comments

We got side tracked a bit by events from the US who did/did not completely destroy/obliterate/dent/modestly annoy Iran’s nuclear capabilities depending on what colour Kool-Aid you drink.

We had intended to cover off some of the vacation, so that’s what we’ll do.

With another couple of long-standing and his Mom we arranged accommodation at an Air B&B on Lake Huron for seven days of disconnection and reconnection with the outdoors. If you don’t know Lake Huron, it is one of the Great Lakes and we were located near Wiarton Ontario right on the shoreline, essentially looking at the halfway point of the thumb of Michigan. Lake Huron is a couple of hundred kilometers wide at that point, so we couldn’t actually see Michigan, but that should locate our Amerikan readers.

Getting there from home in Ottawa would normally be a seven-hour highway drive, door to door, but we had slightly different plans. One of Marylou’s senior colleagues was retiring and there was a going away ‘do’ for the colleague in the suburbs of Toronto, out near the airport. Marylou wanted to be there to wish the colleague well, so we stopped for the evening at a hotel near the restaurant. The fascinating thing with the hotel is that it is located about 500 meters from the PAPI (Precision Approach Position Indicator) for runway 24L at YYZ. As in right in the friggin’ flightpath, just outside the perimeter fence! Looking out of the hotel room window, aircraft are going right over your head. Look downrange and you can watch the landing lights in the ATC lineup stretching back miles on the final approach of several flights per hour. Turkish, KLM, Air France, WestJet, Porter, Air Canada and most of the US mainline carriers whistled by our fourth floor window.

Next day we pointed the GPS at our destination and rolled in a few hours later.

The first thing you notice getting out of the car is the lack of noise. There is no hum of traffic, the steady drone of air conditioners or the usual city sounds of trucks, construction noises or animals making their presence heard. Instead you hear wind moving trees and leaves around a little bit with the coda of small wind-driven waves barely brushing against the rocky shore. Then a gull cry or the sweet chirp of a robin.

The second thing you notice is the air, filling your nose and your lungs. We live in a city, not one with particularly large manufacturing concerns, mostly office folk, so there is no grand evidence of the economy working. The old saying in Cornwall was if the air stinks, then the people are working. (Cornwall had a large papermill for years and years) Ottawa doesn’t do that, but we still have the noticeable pong of a few hundred thousand people moving around each day in cars, busses and transit.

The air at the lake? Cool and sweet, fresh from blowing across the lake. The occasional waft of something like decaying water grass, but natural and welcoming, never offensive or intrusive. The smell of rocks and soil and sunshine, which can never be adequately described, but is so very calming.

That’s the fascinating part of vacation, you feel the city, the stress, the high-performance vibe, the constant striving, grasping and pressure flowing out of your fingertips, dripping on the ground, leaving your body, turning to dust then blowing away in the breeze.

The usual glad to see you, you guys take this room, we’ve got this one, working up a grocery list, how was the drive, did you see the whatever. Unpack, sort stuff out, have a coffee and sit on the deck. Fortunately the couple we’re with are longtime friends and serial vacationers with us, so dialogue is never obligated or forced and long silences looking out the window are expected and respected.

There were a few drives around the area, being near Wiarton, Ontario, we were obligated by our citizenship to visit the statue to Wiarton Willie. For those who don’t know the story, Wiarton Willie is the weather-predicting groundhog, who every February is forcibly taken from his den and shown the sky, while trying to scratch his handlers to death and pissing on everyone in a two meter radius as he is scared stupid and only half awake being yelled at by the gathered not unsubstantial crowd yelling his name. Legend has it, if he sees his shadow, there will be six more weeks of Winter. If he doesn’t see his shadow, Spring will arrive in a month and a half. Or, it is the opposite?

Facing due West, there were several gorgeous sunsets and naturally, several delicious meals, as our travelling companions are like us: We love to eat good, well-prepared delicious food, savouring in tastes and presentations. We swapped duties back and forth and made sure we dined well every day. There were day trips around the area, including a boat tour from Tobermory around Flower Pot island, an old shipwreck in-shore, viewable with the glass-bottom of the cruise boat and some other tourist sites. Nothing challenging, no zip-lines, no cliff climbing. Simple relaxation.

We’ll continue in the next posting, but for now that’s the setup. More to come.

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The Expected Shitshow

Posted on June 23, 2025 | Leave a comment

I was going to write about our vacation, but events external to us have moved up the list. Specifically the US under Diaper Donald, the Grifter in Chief, launching an airstrike on Iran and the political fallout that is following along as expected.

That the airstrike was well-orchestrated and carried out flawlessly is a given. The mechanics were excellent and as expected from professional US DoD planners, technicians and strategists. No argument with that, very well done. Did Diaper Don have anything to do with it, aside from saying “Go”? Highly unlikely, otherwise his Secretary of Defense, the DUI hire, Pete Hegseth would have told all his friends and the neighbours around Mar-A-Grifto about it. About all Donny did was point at the plans and selected the with one with the prettiest highlighter colour.

The reason he selected it are manifold.

Starters, media and politicians alike are demanding the long-promised release of the Epstein Files, where Donny’s name figures prominently.

Second: The Economy. Yes, it is cratering in the US because the tariffs are actually doing what tariffs do: Raise prices for the end-user consumer. A 50% tariff on steel means that the cost of a new car just bumped up by about $4000 by one estimate and that doesn’t include the cost bump on trucks, trailers, rail cars, kitchen hardware, electrical transmission towers, girders, steel roofs and so on. Manufacturers have refused to eat the higher prices, so they pass them on and often magically add another percentage for the paperwork and government paperwork submissions.

ICE Agents, with full face coverings and no visible identification kidnapping people off the street without a warrant, explanation, or even an polite howdy do. There is one clip circulating where a bystander was trying to take a picture of the ICE agent’s license plate. The Agent pulled his weapon and pointed it at the bystander and told him to back off or die. Another bystander caught the whole scene. There are significant rumours that many of the ICE agents are not even police officers, either local, state or federal regardless of department. Any sworn police officer has to have a warrant card and be able to produce it on request, or a visible badge number and name. These are not agents, they are paid thugs trying to help Stephen Miller get to 3,000 deportations a day, regardless of due process.

The term than comes to mind is Brownshirts (Nazi party thugs, circa 1933) or GESTAPO (Geheime Statz Polizi – Secret State Police) circa 1936.

Then there is the general cluster of morons cluttering up Washington DC, all barking for airtime and the benevolent tweet from the Grifter-in-Chief. By the way, the Trump Cell phone is yet another in the long line of grifts, starting with sneakers, loyalty cards, Citizenship fast-track grifts, watches, guitars and the rest. He learned from Trump Steaks, Vodka, University and Mattresses that licensing his shit means money in his pocket. Maybe he could help pay for E. Jean Carrol’s judgement against him and toss a couple of bucks to Rudi Giulliani. Just sayin…

Then there’s the two flagpoles at the White House, one of which is right in the flightpath of Marine One when it lands on the lawn. Or paving over the White House Rose Garden and not talking about the Qatari 747-800 that he asked for.

So many distractions, and the bombing in Iran is just a bigger distraction with nuclear implications and millions of potential deaths so the Toddler-in-Chief and his fart catchers can distract us from the parade float of everything else horrible that he’s done.

Sorry, but I don’t recall anyone else but Amerika being responsible for all this sewage. Perhaps someone should do something about it.

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Schadenfreude

Posted on June 6, 2025 | Leave a comment

Definition: Literally harm-joy per Wikipedia or taking pleasure in someone else’s misfortune. Which, of course, applies to Elon and Diaper Don spitting on each other like the toddlers they both are.

The piles of lies, which we and other media have pointed out since Trump 1.0, the endless grifting, then Trump 2.0 and DOGE cuts, not cuts, massive savings, um, no, then judges, education, lawyers, health care, retirement savings and the cratering of Tesla stocks. Then Elon pulls the yellow pin with two toxic words: Epstein Files.

The GOP/MAGA inbred folks have never wanted to acknowledge the existence of the Epstein Files, despite the US AG saying she has them and will release them in a day or two, two months ago. They don’t want to release them because Diaper Don is all over them as a guest at Epstein’s Love Island, likely center-punching several underaged women since shortly after whothefuckcares?

The schadenfreude comes with you and I watching all this happen. Now, is this polite and nice? No and we do not care. Trump and Musk who manufactured these crises, disputes, lies and arrests are the causal elements of this complete shitstorm.

We’re getting the popcorn maker down from the cupboard, as now the mainstream media has found their genitals and are starting to do actual reporting.

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Daddy Elon and Daddy Donny are Divorcing (During Pride no less!)

Posted on June 5, 2025 | Leave a comment

If you’ve been following the latest shitstorm out of the US yesterday and today you will know that the MAGA Daddy Elon has said that the Big Beautiful Bill sucks a load of dick. It’s a fraud, a massive lie, will do nothing for Amerikans and will increase the debt by some huge number.

Meanwhile MAGA Daddy Donny has said that Elon was unliked by Cabinet and Barron. Stephen Miller disliked Elon ’cause Elon was shanking Miller’s wife, etc. etc.

Elon retaliated with Trump is all over the Epstein Files and Donny is afraid to release the files and be a documented pedo, as well as a convicted sexual abuser.

Does this not sum up the entire MAGA movement?

Two Daddy figures that everyone must obey, both men, neither particularly bright, or honest.

Two Daddy figures who inherited money and never did an honest days’ work with their hands.

Two Daddy figures who would steal, lie, cheat, fudge, shade, bribe and break any and all laws and then deny they did it, or deny that any of it applies to them, then sue the judge for daring to apply the laws to them.

Two Daddy figures with egos large enough to have separate area codes.

Two Daddy figures who have no vague idea how to maintain some kind of consensual relationship with a female of the species unless they transactionally pay for it, grab a handful of it, or bury the body on a golf course.

Two Daddy figures who have no spiritual aspect to their personalities; one cannot say what his favourite passage in the Bible is but professes bigly knowledge of said Bible

Two Daddy figures who are both grifters on a massive scale, primarily from taxpayer dollars, but also from their economically marginalized supporters.

And so on.

Let us examine the catfight from an independent lens.

MAGA fans worshiping two (!) Daddy figures. That sure sounds CIS gendered to me and isn’t that what MAGA wants? A traditional set of family values ( Note to WordPress, we need a sarcasm font) for the support of Amerikan Family Values! Um, two Daddys?

MAGA fans wanted honest governance to “Drain The Swamp”. They got one who lives and dies on the government subsidies for his EV car business, his space rocket business and his internet business. The other signed +200 Executive orders cutting core government programs, ignoring states’ pleas for disaster assistance and demanded several large law firms pony up millions in free work for him and possibly for the government, or they wouldn’t get ANY federal business, be blacklisted and booted out of every federal building.

MAGA wanted someone to make America Great, meaning respected, leading on the world stage and building wealth beyond measure. The G7 has invited the US to get fucked. Canada, the closest and best neighbour has Elbows Up as the ending of the national anthem, O Canada. Travel from Canada to the US has dropped by 49%, approximately 10 Billion dollars this year alone. The EU said #FAFO and Trump folded like a tissue paper tent in a rainstorm. China said the same thing and the tariffs went from 145% to 15% in a classic Art Of The Deal strategy. The strategy in Art Of The Deal is called “Wave your dick around like a bully then cry like a little bitch when we kick you in the balls and invite you to go fuck yourself”

Folks, Amerika is not Number 1, by any measure, except sheer stupidity. The rest of the world does not trust you, believe you, or even admire you a little bit. Amerika has become a laughing stock. Nobody wants your products or services, in fact many countries have countervailed duties making your stuff too expensive to buy and are encouraging local purveyors of the same stuff, Canada being a good example: Millions of shoppers putting “Made In Amerika” products back on the shelf, but upside down so we know not to touch them. They rot on the shelves and we send them back.

You were promised so much winning. You got two Daddy figures who are getting a nasty divorce, in Pride Month, which is tellingly ironic. They’re spitting on each other like snotty kids in Grade Three.

The rest of the world will welcome you back, personally and perhaps financially, after you get rid of those two Daddy figures. They are your problem.

A majority of you elected them. Amerika is better than this and smarter than this. Your Constitution has the needed provisions. You’ve shown the courage before and you are deep down still brave enough to do it again.

Yes, you got scared on 9/11, we all did, but we’ve sucked it up and so can you.

But YOU have to do it. And we’ll be here once you get it done, but until then, we’re moving on without you.

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Flood The Zone-Lack of Media Response

Posted on May 20, 2025 | Leave a comment

In the previous post, Flood the Zone, we explained some of the ways the Republican Reptiles are overloading the mainstream media with a near-continuous firehosing of bullshit and distractions to hide the truly nefarious goings on. It isn’t difficult to see how it works and it isn’t new. Being fooled by it is new-ish.

In the past few decades, politicians behaving badly usually resulted in the politician being charged and convicted (George Santos) or resigning (Gary Hart) or suddenly being ignored by the media (Joe Clark, Erin O’Toole, Dubya 1 and 2, Rudy Giuliani) with media essentially saying “You’re dead to us”

The difficulty with news media is that they have an obligation to stay somewhere near truthfulness. Truth, accuracy and objectivity are the hallmarks of actual reporting, be it electronic, social media or print.

It is also one of those damn hard things to do in the realm of actual journalism.

Historically the Washington Post wouldn’t break the Watergate story unil Woodward and Bernstein came up with a second corroborating source that the break-in at the Watergate Hotel into the Democratic National Headquarters was controlled by the White House. That source was Mark Felt, codename ‘Deep Throat” who knew all the details and connected the dots for the WaPo. The rest of the explosion can be read here, the real core starting point being the sources that provided confirmation sufficient to allow the then-publisher Katherine Graham to greenlight the reporting and risk the wrath of the Nixonian White House.

Here’s why Flood The Zone works: It forces media to skip fact-checking and only report what talking point was regurgitated. Fact-checking takes time. Fact-checking takes knowledge. Fact-checking needs corroberating sources that are sometimes impenatrable in their jargon. Fact-checking takes memory longer than the last hour. Fact-checking also takes a certain amount of fearlessness.

With all the media cutbacks in the last two decades, there are very few editors, assistant editors, sourcing desks or even low-level asssistants left employed to perform even the most cursory of examination of expostulated ‘facts’ in a political puke point.

For instance, a story of last week: Qatar offers to gift a 747-800 with an “Imperial Interior” to US President Donnie the Felon. Obvious story hook, grift, bribery, sleazy shit by Diaper Don, same same.

Here are some underreported facts that media has not covered as best we can tell: The aircraft was one of two bought by the Qatari Amiri Fleet as VIP transports. The Qatari Royal Family bought them two at a time in 2012, then had them fitted out with the appropriate plush interiors. One was gifted to Turkey, tail number VQ-BSK that entered fleet service in 2015, repainted all-white and has a ludicrously low number of hours and cycles on the airframe. For the non-aviation minded, that is 7/10ths of 1% of Fuck All use. It hasn’t even scuffed the molding nubs off the tires.

The one that Donny has a semi-hard-on for is A7-HBJ. Again, full plush interior, has barely 1,000 hours and 279 cycles and has been in storage for five years. Donny got to feel the rugs in February and asked if he could have it, which was not commonly known. Qatar didn’t just up and offer it to Felon 47 out of the goodness of their hearts and try to cobble together some boondoggle to get it for free. forever. Felon 47 wanted it. Qatar gets to have a $400 million IOU with the US President and Diaper Don gets to pretend he’s a Grand Poobah of Excellence in Every Way Possible. And keep the plane!

By comparison, Jimmy Carter, who had a working, prosperous, peanut farm when he was elected Prez, was forced to put it into a blind trust that he did not control, before he could take office. Trumpp hasn’t even released his personal taxes from Trump 1.0, let alone Dumpster Fire 2.0.

So why no fact-checking or sourcing? For me, a regular guy, it took close to two hours to dig up verifiable facts on the aircraft and their history. Media doesn’t have that kind of time, or people with expertise available to gather even the most rudimentary facts about one tiny piece of the story.

Media and I mean all of them, electronic, social and print, do not care about the facts in the story and the nuance of the story. From my research, again about two hours real time, Trump will get a gift of an older, full-luxe 747-800 that does not have any of the Department of Defence modifications (still to be added including air-to-air refuelling and highly secure comms) with very few airframe hours and doesn’t even have enough seats to handle the usual Presidential transport duties and he gets to keep it after he leaves office. (2)

What Media cares about is the outrage, which is at best a days’ coverage by talking heads or a few column inches. It might even run a week of the public attention. Then a further outrage (Don Jr. saying Dr. Jill Biden was so stupid she couldn’t spot fourth stage prostate cancer in her husband (1) and she hid it from everyone, if she did) Or that Wal-Mart will be passing on the tariff price increases to consumers, while Felon 47 says Wal-Mart shoppers would react harshly if Wal-Mart did not eat the cost of the very tariffs Felon 47 put in place.

There was an old newroom apocryphal quote from back in day that said “If it bleeds, it leads”, meaning death, dismemberment, gore, outrage or manufactured fear and hate these days, is always the lead story to garner the most eyeballs, likes or comments. The quote goes back to the 1890’s with William Randolph Hearst and the Hearst paper empire, but it still rings true. The only reason George Floyd’s killing made the news was because they had footage, tape or images. Rodney King’s beating, same thing. If we’ve got tape then that’s the story. The actual facts behind it, well, we ain’t got time for that right now.

This is not new. Two things have changed, first is the speed that media pushes the new lead and second, the complete abscence of the slightest fact checking to give you, the viewer, some kind of context for what the actual fuck did I just see? Christ I am pissed OFF! Which is what the media wants: Anger responses are very strong, as are Flight or Fight responses.

Why do you think US TV Stations in Tornado Alley spend tons of money on the best radar equipment money can buy? If they can have a meat puppet in front of a green screen pointing out a marching red line image that indicates possible tornadic activity and the breathless, over-caffeinated tones of the reporter urging all citizens to hide, shelter or kiss your ass goodbye. Follow that up with shots of uprooted trees, upturned cars and trucks and some white trash trailer park whore tearfully, sobbing hat she can’t find her kitty cat named Punkin when the winds blew away her trailer. You get to punch the audience with all kinds of emotions. Did I just describe any news clip from the past 20 years from Tornado Alley during tornado season?

Now you see why Flood the Zone works. It plays off our fears and anger, then leverages the simple fact that media has not got the resources to check the facts and has the bias inherent in pushing raw emotions at us for nothing more than ratings and money. This is us, the public, getting the media we deserve.

The number of people I personally know and have talked with, that have completely removed any news media from their personal space is remarkable in a very bad way. An informed, rational citizenry is the cornerstone of Democracy. Having said that, I do understand why people opt out with the whipsawing and the outrage. Your thoughts?

(1) Dr. Jill Biden is not a medical doctor, her doctorate is in Education.

(2) CNN is only now (Tues May 20th, 1500 hrs EDT) breaking the story that the whole Qatari aircraft gift story is a complete load of shit. Felon 47 saw the shiny thing and wanted it

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God Branding (What Would Jesus Drive?)

Posted on June 16, 2017 | Leave a comment

We tend to not criticize those with strongly held belief sets, as having some kind of belief set is one of those things that humans do as a natural behavior.  We’re fairly certain that Ooog and Uggg invoked their forms of prayer to the invisible deities they felt controlled the mastodons or brought them luck in the hunt, millennia before there was what we now call ‘religion’.

We don’t self-identify as agnostic, nor as atheist, believing that ‘faith’ is your own damn business.  We can recite the Nicene Creed from memory, which means there has been some theological learning in our history, but not limited to the usual suspects:  We looked at them all over the years to see what we could learn from older, potentially wiser people and their documents.  The scientist in ourselves, who looks for empirical proof has no problem with the contradictions of religion demanding faith before logic, as faith seems to be one of those things that humans have.  If you don’t like contradictions in humans, then, perhaps you need to adjust your world-view.  Humans are contradictory creatures at the best of times.

What we are looking for is an understanding.  Let’s, for the sake or argument, accept that there is a higher power than us humans and stop there.  We’re not going to get into he/she/it created the Universe in an afternoon, or cause a flood, or did the thing with the apple and the snake, as that is theology, not belief in a higher power.

Theology is something totally different from belief in a higher power and we’re going to use the term “God” as the most commonly understood and recognized term for a belief in a higher power.  (We have to have some kind of short-form label, if only to keep this post from being in excess of 10,000 words.  We’re not going to tie ourselves in politically correct, ultra-inclusive language for the sake of not offending anyone.  Higher power = God.  Now, let’s move on.)

The contemporary parallel is Cars.  A lot of humans own them and they all do the basic things of move you somewhat effortlessly from A to B, often carrying some of your stuff with you, like groceries, or the cat to the groomer.  There is no real difference between them, in that they all are at least vaguely competent in doing what they are designed to do.

Where they differentiate is in their branding and what is created in the mind of the consumer as the image of the brand.  Ask a die-hard GM owner to drive a Ford and you might as well demand they whittle off a limb with a butter knife.  Nissan owners would rather have dental surgery in an septic tank than be near a Honda driver.  Blue Oval fans insist that late at night you can hear a Bowtie rust in your driveway, while BMW pilots sneer at the Audi drivers who can’t seem to find the turn signal.  Volvo and Mercedes-Benz drivers are simply smug pricks.  Smart Car owners need a red foam-rubber nose as mandatory equipment so we can spot the clowns getting out of their ‘vehicle’.  FIAT stands for Fix It Again Tony and the Trabant was merely a very bad punchline to an indecipherable existential Soviet joke.

Same functionality, but rabid fandom for their brand.

God is the king of branding:  It’s not Terry O’Reily.  Before there was such a thing as branding, in a marketing sense, there developed a large number of brands of God that spoke to various cultural needs as a convenient explanation of current events, social and gender control, and political intrigues.  Of course those brands also used, wars, hatred, slavery and exceptional levels of violence as part of their brand.

If God’s purpose is to give us comfort and something to believe in, either because we as humans need to feel that, or because God actually exists and made us want to have that feeling, then God has succeeded rather well.

Where it all goes to shit is with the brands.

In keeping with our analogy, even the most hard-core Porsche fan wouldn’t ever consider setting fire to a Lotus Europa, as we have something called tolerance.  Yes, you are allowed to like other brands, your judgement may be suspect (QED, Chrysler owners) but it’s ok.

Why can’t we do that with religion?

You like your brand.  I like my brand.

It’s Friday, move on.

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Self-Evident Truths (Reprint)

Posted on May 6, 2017 | Leave a comment

We occasionally receive emails forwarded from locations unknown that contain pearls of wisdom among the dross.  One of which was the “Adult Truths” from a correspondent.  We’ve rewritten it, sort of, and reprinted it from February 2011 as we’re in day 6 of 14 or more of continuous, endless rain.  

1:  When you die, the first duty of your best friend should be to clear your computer history.

2:  There is great need for a sarcasm font, especially in email to government departments.

3:  Were the years spent learning cursive writing really necessary?

4:  MapQuest can start their directions on #5.  I know how to get out of my neighbourhood. 

5:  Could we all please just agree to ignore whatever comes along after Blu-Ray or 4K  I’m fed up with having to start my video collection…again.

6: Kay Jewelers is wrong:  Not every kiss begins with Kay.  Pick any Friday or Saturday night, and I’ll wager many start with a silo of MGD, or a fourth round of tequila shooters.

7:  To all the Nigerian/Togoan/Maldivian lawyers out there:  I don’t have wealthy relatives that suddenly died leaving me a fortune. No, you can’t help. 

9:  Can we have a sign in our cars that says:  Your $45,000 Lexus has a broken turn signal, or you’re an asshat.  Pick one.

10:  How are kids going to learn what clockwise is? 

11:  For that matter, how will kids ever know what REgent 5-1212 was?

12: 12:00…12:00…12:00  Is my technology mocking me?

13:  If the various national security agencies who are reading all our emails and texts would get together, I wouldn’t have to wade through mountainous piles of spam.  Just forward the important stuff please.  Oh, and send me a reminder of my anniversary as well.  Thanks.

14:  Note to parents:  Your kid will never make it to the NBA/NFL/MLB/NHL/Olympics.  Relax.  They are not the next Crosby or Gretz.  Ain’t happening.

15:  How many times can one network run “Weekend At Bernie’s” without incurring the wrath of consumers? Or is this just a trick by televisions manufacturers to have us throw large objects at our TV’s, necessitating the purchase of a new one?

16:  There are some things that should never be shot in 4K HD.  We do not need to see a Kardashian’s steatopygia at that level of detail.  

18:  Mashups should die now.  Preferably in the same fatal crash that takes Autotune and ProTools.  Learn how to sing then learn how to edit and mix.  For the video monkeys, there’s nothing wrong with a cut; use a dissolve if you have to.  The quad split was invented by video switcher engineers to have another button that lights up. 

19:  Ice Fishing.  Why fish for it, when you have a perfectly good freezer at home?  Make your own.

20:  There’s no such thing as “Authentic” any cuisine.  It’s always changing.  Beware of any joint that strives to serve authentic fusion cuisine when the place is named Ulmanis & Tomokiro and serves Latvian-Japanese fusion cuisine. 

21:  Why cut when you can untie?  Sorry, now that everything is in impervious plastic security blister-pack clamshells, you have to reach for the plasma cutter to get at the tube of wood filler.

22:  A little honesty from the liquor companies please.  The objective isn’t to relive that great time when we ran out of milk and loaded the coffee with Bailey’s.  The objective is to relive the Christmas party when Gretchen from Accounting got shitfaced and took her top off while dancing on the break room counter.

23:  Thong underwear is wrong, regardless of gender.

24:  Ads for prescription medicine should include a complete list of  all the side effects.  This will result in prescription medicine ads that are four minutes long or cover five pages of your magazine.  We need to know that your miracle cure has only been tested on four employees, two of whom spontaneously combusted when exposed to daylight.

25:  Lists like this.  It must be mid-winter.  (Actually, it must be day 6 of 14 of continuous rain.  Petrie Island is under water)

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Posted in Social Constructs

FHRITP Script Flip Public Service Announcement

Posted on May 24, 2015 | Leave a comment

We like to flip the script from time to time and Shauna Hunt from CITY-TV did exactly that, beautifully.  She is a reporter with CITY-TV in Toronto and was doing a live stand-up outside a Toronto FC event when an idiot leaned into the microphone and entered the Pantheon of Idiocy.  Here’s the clip from CBC as part of their coverage.

There are two constants in our universe:  Hydrogen and Stupidity.  This means a reporter expects there to be idiots in the background, or sometimes in the foreground when the camera is live.  The normal idiot remark when on camera at a live stand-up is something along the lines of “Hi Mom” or “Toronto FC Rocks!” along with pseudo gang signs or a half-drunk rock-on-devil-horns.  Yelling ‘Fuck Her Right In The Pussy!” at Shauna Hunt, cost Shawn Simoes his job at Hydro One as a well-paid IT engineer and has probably cost him his whole career for a few moments of exceptional stupidity.  Good.  He deserves it and there is not a lot of sympathy from this quarter.

However, we are inclusive in our world-view and the stupid will always be among us, usually showing up in the background on live hits from any event possible. 

As a Public Service, here are some things idiots can and perhaps should say when on camera:

“Good Reportage”, preferably in a semi-posh accent, a dead-straight face and a single curt nod at the end

“Do you have any Grey Poupon?”  You should be holding a sausage smog-dog to truly carry this one off

“Jello for Everyone!”  Penn Gillette may still do this, although Penn and Teller don’t tour much anymore.  The gag is they would buy a Jello dessert for everyone in a restaurant.  It might cost $30, but getting a free Jello dessert at a diner, late at night, is too cool for words.  Gillette would often add “Work for World Peace” to the end of it.  Your choice.

“Can I take a selfie with you?”, perhaps better done by a hysterical 14 year old girl in the lineup for a concert by some interchangeable boy band

“Ars Gratia Pecunia!”  This will take some memorization, but it is low-rent Latin for Art for Money, loosely based on the MGM Ars Gratia Artis – Art for Art’s Sake.  (No it isn’t perfect Latin conjugation as it should be Committendi artis pecuniam, but if it was good enough for Louis B. Mayer, we can live with it)

“Spay and Neuter your Pets!”  Bob Barker would like this one

“I’m continent!”  Saucy, but bladder-positive if nothing else

“Nice Shoes!”  This is quite dirty as the backstory explains the setup and you are only delivering the setup, not the whole line.  An acquaintance was once hit on by a guy who showed exactly how much game he had by reducing his seduction time to “Nice shoes, wanna fuck?”  It didn’t work, but one could always use statistical rules to try it 100 times and see how many times it succeeds.  Odds are 2/100 but that’s better than 0/100

“Free Falun Gong, Win Valuable Prizes!”  So it isn’t fully positive and politically correct, but there has to be some leeway in public stupidity on camera

“Thanks for being here!”  This will mess with the reporter’s head, especially if you’re sincere and only modestly enthusiastic, instead of over-the-top crazy

And the always appropriate..

“Hi Mom!” Even if you’re looting a big screen TV from a store in the US during a riot, this always works.

You’re welcome.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

      

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Posted in News and politics, Social Constructs

Charleston and Duffy

Posted on April 12, 2015 | 4 comments

We’ve got a bit of a two-fer today, as both events are causing us great vexation. 

First off Walter Scott being gunned down in North Charleston, SC.  If you haven’t seen the video of Walter Scott being shot by a police officer, here it is.  Aside from the obvious attempt of the officer to plant something and the fact they officer was charged not with manslaughter, or self-defense, but straight up murder, and the racial stink that permeates the whole thing, there is one more vexatious point:  How can a trained police officer fire eight rounds at a target moving away from him at no more than 30 feet and only hit the target once?  Where did the other seven rounds go?  The Projectile Fairy didn’t capture them and put them under the officer’s pillow that night, of that we’re fairly certain. 

Which tells me the North Charleston Police couldn’t train a goose to shit, let alone teach their officers how to use the spectrum of force and when to increase the amount of force used with a subject.  That’s Policing 101, usually about Day 2 of rookie orientation.  For those who don’t know about the spectrum of force, here’s a good discussion. 

From our perspective as a citizen it’s simple enough to follow.  Simple presence of the uniformed officer, a commanding voice and attitude, hand control, active restraint, or baton, then chemical (OC spray, or Mace) electrical discharge weapons like a Taser or a Beanbag Shotgun, then the firearm.  Notice the escalation, from simple, loud, commands (“Stay in your car and drop the keys out the window”) to pulling the sidearm and everything in between.

There are exceptions of course, based on the situation.  If you pull over a guy and he gets out of the car with a shotgun and brings it up, you tell them drop the weapon and get your firearm ready to go, as the suspect has escalated things (Suspects don’t necessarily care about escalation of force protocols) and you have to react appropriately, immediately.  We’ve got no problem with that, at all. 

The Walter Scott shooting is another thing.  That went from an out of shape 50 year old with no obvious weapon or threat to the officer, running away, to an officer planting evidence after firing a clip at the suspect.  Had it played out sensibly, the officer would have got back in his car and followed Walter Scott for another 200 yards until he ran out of run and collapsed on his own.  Cuffs, backup, done with minimal paperwork and less fuss. 

Was Walter Scott in fear for his life?  We don’t know, but the dashcam footage showed a reasonable traffic stop and a compliant citizen who panicked in front of a cop with less experience with spectrum of force than my dog.  At least the dog has the smarts to back off when the cats give that low, rumbling hiss that translates across species into “Eff Off!”  We would also strongly recommend that every officer in North Charleston go back to the range and prove they can actually hit targets, center of mass at 10, 20, and 50 feet.  We don’t need idiots sending rounds all over the neighbourhood because they can’t shoot straight and that includes the police.

Senator Mike Duffy’s trial for Expense Fraud and charges of General Assholery is in its first week.  Up here our Federal Senate is populated by appointment of the Prime Minister.  It’s a reward for being a fart-catcher with rules that are looser than Amish sphincters after a binge-eat at the All You Can Eat Burrito Bar at Applebee’s.  Hiring a convicted serial rapist as your personal assistant is considered bad form, but that’s about it.  The caveat with this kind of demented-emperor oversight is that you say good things about the government and every program they bring forward is simply wonderful for all Canadians. 

Did Duffy go jowls-deep in the feed trough?  Sure he did; all the Conservative appointees do, just like all the Liberal appointees did when the Liberals were in power.  Up to the elbow in free trips, expense fiddles, hiring cousins with no work experience, or the easy fiddles of simply not showing up for work for two years at a stretch, but someone managing to cash the paycheque from your cushy digs in Mexico.  No committee work, no endless bladder-crippling meetings, no Question Period, nothing more exhausting than flying to Vancouver to do a 20 minute speech about how a government program is simply wonderful, words pre-written by the PMO and delivered with the standard half-hearted enthusiasm of a long-time party hack who has been phoning it in since 1988.  Then there is the crippling stress of having your assistant file the expense claims, which can only be relieved by flying to a foreign climate to rest and recuperate, on the taxpayer’s dime.

To be frank, our Senate is a joke beyond redemption that costs us millions of dollars every year for the members of the chamber of Sober Second Thought to roll around in the trough.  We get more value for money from the Dominion Carillonneur when she plays K’naan’s Wavin’ Flag on the Parliament Hill bells.  At least you can walk by the Hill and go, “What the heck is that song, holy crap, it’s that World Cup thing!  Kewl!”

With luck the Duffy Show will play out as expected just before our upcoming Federal Election in October.  The Harper Government will be painted accurately as mean-spirited micromanaging bullies.  Then the voting citizens will be confronted with a choice of None Of The Above on our ballots.

 

 

                   

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Posted in News and politics, Organizations, Social Constructs