politics – MASTER OF NONE

January 14, 2020

LIBERTARIAN CANADIAN

Paradoxically, wait times are increasing despite decades of ‘working’ on the problem. WHY?!?

Our Insecurity is Strangling Canadian Prosperity

“We’ve spent all this money, what do we have to show for it?” – Little Mrs. Graham lamenting the state of Canada’s finances many years ago.

These were the sentiments of one of my elementary school teachers some time back when I stopped in for a quick visit. As a note, we had two Mrs. Grahams, one small and one large. But the epitaph is as true today as it was those many years ago, where has all the money gone?

One of the areas of concern starting to rear up again in Canadian social media circles is the issue of waiting times for medical procedures and the general lack of medical availability. People are starting to see their own health, along with their family and friends, suffer due to the chronic inability of the medical system to perform. Have you ever tried to find a new family doctor? We have known for decades that the Boomer generation was going to swamp each sector of society as they moved through. So why the general lack of preparedness despite government assurances that more money is going into the system?

Sure, there was some chattering during last year’s Federal election regarding health care in this country. The Liberals made some vague noise about universal pharmacare and the NDP declared ‘Free for Everyone’ as they are wont to do. Did anyone believe that the Health care debate was getting the attention that a National crisis should normally garner? Even if the panacea of ‘Free Drugs for Everyone’ program is in the offing, it will take forever to work out the details and roll-out. The Liberals still have not fixed the Phoenix system for paying their own employees so the question is how will they not screw this up too?

This is not a swipe at any particular level or brand of government. This incompetence related to getting anything done in Canada crosses the entire political spectrum right down to the municipal level.

But let us get back to a little, old lady’s observation that Canada is bereft of any sort of meaningful accomplishments. The reason for our general lack of paradoxically not being able to get anything done despite mountains of cash being thrown at a problem is our insecurity complex related to being a poor nation.

What? Poor nation you say, that’s not right! Au contraire, we could have been a great nation but ever since WWII, Canada has slid further and further into obsolesce and we are squandering the resources that this country is blessed with.

Here is a pointed example of Canada’s insecurity related to the inconceivably long and expensive process of procuring military equipment, namely the New Shipborne Helicopter. The book, The Politics of Procurement by Aaron Plamondon, goes into exquisite detail over how the venerable Sea King helicopter which was to be replaced in 1975 has still not been fully replaced by the new Cyclone.

Read the book but here is an example of the mission creep which affects all Canadian institutions. The Statement of Requirements (SOR) for the original Sea King was only about four pages. When the military was starting to look for a replacement in 1975, the SOR had already ballooned to four volumes. All that extra time and effort jacks the ultimate cost of anything the military wants to buy. They do not get shiny, new toys very often so they want to get things right. Then because the government waffles over these decisions, it gives new governments time to cancel programmes outright and start their own politically driven agendas. That is how the CAF never gets their equipment. It is also how Canada does not get new pipelines and end up buying foreign oil from dictatorships.

General insecurity stalls out industrious Canadians. There is no point in going into the pipeline debate as those things get hopelessly mired down. But here is an example of something as simple as recovering a log from the bottom of a lake. In BC, when logs are floated across lakes, some become waterlogged and sink. This wood is still incredibly valuable and the diving company I worked for wanted to go after them. We did not bother because you needed an environmental permit to disturb the bottom of the lake, a permit to have the log on the surface, a permit to bring the log to the edge of the lake, a permit to bring a truck down to the edge of the lake, and a permit to take the log away. Now throw in a few more layers of bureaucracy like Indigenous and gender balance, and it is just not worth the effort for a small outfit. Ostensibly, regulations are meant to protect things but in reality, they serve to stifle industry.

All levels of government are bloated with civil servants whose job is to regulate the country to a standstill. Here is an example from what I observed in the military that is just as true of the civil service. An officer would enter a new job. In order to progress and be promoted, they needed to effect ‘change’. They were never in the job for long or had a budget large enough to push through a complex project that would take decades to see through and effect real change. They just fiddled with the system enough to piss off their subordinates. That is where the saying ‘The more things change, the more they stay the same’ comes from. Meanwhile, their budgets got spent mostly spinning wheels.

Here is an example from the Coast Guard. The West Coast fleet, back in the day, had a couple of ladies with Rolodexes looking after everyone’s pay and nary an issue. The system was modernized with a new building in downtown Vancouver with 50 employees and it went to shit. You were happy to get any sort of pay cheque and issues would take up to half a year to fix.

Here is one from the Veterans Hospital in Halifax. The building has rats. Nurses can hear them humping in the walls and ceilings. Veterans Affairs representatives told me to my face that they were aware of the problem and were having meetings to discuss solutions. The solution was to call an exterminator and kill the vermin. Instead, admin types endlessly study the issue as they are reticent over spending money to fix obvious problems. Meetings give the appearance of ‘we are on the job’ when actually nothing is being accomplished.

Suffice to say, Canadians could endlessly bring up examples of why stuff does not get done in this country. Heaven forbid if we cross some politically incorrect line. What if those ‘people’ get offended? Is there anyone left to apologize to yet? Have we sufficiently studied this issue to death with regards to how it will effect the Canadian three-toed hemostar, the Indigenous tribe on the other side of the country, the ever popular Canadian content rules, and just for fun, the new ‘gender’ balance rules we are going to have to follow. To be crass, we are a nation of pussies. Sorry, eh?

Venezuela is listed with having the world’s largest proven oil reserves. Their descent into becoming a ‘shit-hole’ country took less than two decades. Don’t worry Canada will be the Northern Venezuela soon enough the way we are going.

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Blair is a personification of a ‘Jack of All Trades and Master of None’. He has held several careers and has all the T-shirts. Time to add the title Blogger to the list.

December 17, 2019

SAFETY OFFICER EXPERT

The Tyranny of Safetyism

“If it’s not 100% safe, then ban it!”

This is the mantra of a growing section of society where even if the risk of harm is miniscule and virtually non-existent, if even one person is hurt or killed, the practice or product must be banned. Personal liberties and freedoms need some curtailing even in democracies, but where is the point where the Nanny State goes too far?

The premise is termed ‘Concept Creep’. As quipped during a Big Bang Theory episode where Penny and Leonard’s mother were doing shots at the Cheesecake Factory, ‘If one is good, then more must be better!’ You could re-word this quote to say, ‘If less is better, than none is the best!’

To illustrate some of the safetyism prevalent in Canada, let us start with the food we feed our children. Of course, ‘good’ parents want what’s best for little Timmy and Jane. Hence, the explosion of organic foods and the drive by advocacy groups to drive containments that may only be in the parts per billion down to absolute zero.

Instead of rehashing the arguments of why paying three times the cost for organics is a rip-off and why ‘the dose makes the poison’, let us examine a common food item, honey.

If you have an infant under the age of one, Health Canada recommends that you do not feed them honey as it may cause infant botulism. The younglings are unable to process botulism spores until they are a little older and at the age of one year, it is deemed safe for healthy infants to finally taste bee juice.

There seems to be some merit to these honey recommendations as some studies have shown C.botulinum to be present up to 25% of honey batches tested. But according to Health Canada, since 1979 of the 42 cases of infant botulism reported, only 3 were linked to ingestion of honey. Although life threatening, when caught early and treated fatalities are only 2%. These stats come from the States where they credit physician education for mitigating the mortality of infant botulism cases.

Heck, but most parents would agree, my kid isn’t starving for food so why take the chance with honey even though the risk by the numbers is very, very low. But botulism still will occur and it’s more than likely going to come from one of the many other vectors that are all around us. Besides, according to Canadian Traffic Collision Statistics, these same parents are many more times likely to hurt their infant in a vehicle accident driving to the store to buy the honey.

Moving on from innocuous and vague threats in our food supply, there is another hot button safety item that is burning up the social media feeds as the Liberals get set for another round of gun banning.

In general, the anti-gun side which has no clue as to what is involved regarding the legal purchase, use, and storage of guns let alone hand guns, wants to outright ban all guns. They are ‘scary’, why do you need an AK-47 to hunt deer, they’re used to kill women, etc. They just want guns to disappear off the face of the Earth and we’ll all be happier.

The 2 million legal Canadian gun owners have taken some umbrage to these broad sweeping statements which would eventually see a general disarmament of the population. First off, are there not more pressing issues? Violent crime in Canada, especially with a firearm, is an anomaly. According to 2016 figures, violent crime committed with a firearm only occurs .6% of the time.

A Canadian is just as likely to die from stabbing and beating as compared to being intentionally shot by someone but again those numbers are only about .6/100,000 people. The vast amount of people dying from guns, at 75%, are those committing suicide. Banning guns will not prevent suicides as they will just find some other method.

It begs the question, why are leftist governments so intent on banning guns and does it not seem that their end goal is to legislate them out of existence? It won’t reduce the incidence of illegal guns or crime on Canadian streets as the US is flush with weapons already making their way North.

Moving along, the Manitoba Government would like to wish all those merry makers a joyful party season where officers will be impounding your vehicle, confiscating your driver’s license, and levying stiff fines starting at $400 for the penalty of having one drink. Despite the fact that impaired driving rates have dropped by 2/3rds in the last 3 decades and Manitoba already had good numbers, it’s not enough if only one person dies due to drinking and driving.

Of course, if a person is physically impaired and hits the .08 BAC or higher, they should not be operating a motor vehicle. This .08 BAC was actually researched and was not a number pulled from a hat. But this is where concept creep insidiously makes its way into legislation. Some evidence from BC’s dropping of the limit was given as proof that these new measures were going to save more lives. The BC numbers seem to indicate an extra 50 people are alive each year since they have dropped the BAC limit to .05. Just for comparison’s sake, BC’s overdose deaths for 2018 were greater than 1500. There seems to be a disconnect as to priorities.

But the new, arbitrary limit can easily be reached by having one drink. Are you actually impaired with one drink, compared to maybe not getting enough sleep the night before? How soon will it be before the government decides that zero drinks will be the new limit? Shouldn’t the government be removing sleepy drivers off of the road also? Maybe we should just shut down all the highways and keep people in their houses and confiscate all vehicles.

Canadians seem to be becoming timid creatures, afraid of their own shadows, and willing to accede to the State when it comes to what’s good for them. Concept creep is inexorably strangling our personal liberties and freedoms. When did we cede all personal responsibility to government as to what risks we as individuals were willing to take?

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Blair is a personification of a ‘Jack of All Trades and Master of None’. He has held several careers and has all the T-shirts. Time to add the title Blogger to the list.

December 16, 2019

CANADIAN POLITICAL PUNDIT

Canada’s Parliment Buildings in Ottawa, Ontario

Thoughts on Canadian Political Reformation

If the trend in Canadian politics keeps moving along its present course, the country is destined for a seismic shake-up. Most places in the world would move to an outright civil war or coup d’état but as Canadians are so ‘polite’, we will probably talk things to death.

Here are a few political ideas that should be studied for their validity and worth in order to re-engage voters and to heal the divides that are threatening our country:

The concept of fairness within Canadian society needs to be reasserted.

Canada has always been a country of disparate regions, religions, and cultures. What used to hold us together as a nation was equality, hence the concept of Equalization payments to help the ‘have-not’ provinces. Instead we have become a fractured nation split off into this camp or another.

Representation by population is not working. Pierre Elliot Trudeau remarked during his 1982 Constitution Speech, ‘For if individuals and minorities do not feel protected against the possibility of the tyranny of the majority, if French-speaking Canadians or native peoples or new Canadians do not feel they will be treated with justice, it is useless to ask them to open their hearts and minds to their fellow Canadians.’ You might as well add Western Canadians and anyone who lives outside of a major urban center to that list in order to bring it up to date.

Canada needs a system of government where the ‘forgotten’ Canadians feel they have a voice and are not ruled by the population of the Greater Toronto Area.

The election cycle is too short.

The terms for a sitting representative should be lengthened to at least 10 years. As it stands, a government hardly gets going before they have to start electioneering for another term. If businesses and individuals could be certain that policies would be stable and government decisions would stand for a reasonable period of time, then everyone could plan accordingly.

As a check and balance, once the representative was elected to office, they would be limited to one or maybe two terms. My leaning is towards one term only, then the elected official could put their head down and just work towards what was best for their electorate.

Voters at all levels of governance need to be reengaged.

Turnout for Municipal elections barely reach 30%. Numbers for younger voters are low. If terms were lengthened, then the opportunity to vote would not come around that often and people would naturally want to have their say.

There could be a carrot and stick approach. All levels of government could be elected on the same day and it could easily be deemed a National Voters Day and a Stat day off. The stick would be severe penalties for eligible voters who did not at least attend a polling station. You would not be forced to vote but you would be strongly encouraged to at least show up.

Voting would at least mean something again and people would not feel as disenfranchised.

Politicians need to be held accountable.

The reason people do not vote and feel disenfranchised is because they feel they are not listened to. ‘So what, I voted, those bastards are just going to do what they want anyways,’ is the general sentiment. It seems that politicians, regardless of party affiliation, will say and do whatever it takes to get into power. Then their hope is their foibles, missteps, or outright corruption is forgotten by an absent-minded electorate during the next campaign cycle.

Here is an example of where a politician should have been locked up instead of being lauded for having her picture hung up in the Ontario Legislature. During a recent lecture in Madrid, Tom Harris of the International Climate Science Coalition, detailed the debacle of Ontario’s wind and solar power generation. It is becoming increasingly clear that wind and solar are becoming expensive boondoggles. Even Kathleen Wynne acknowledged the fact that Ontario electricity prices were going to hurt her election chances. She was right and she and her party were spectacularly tossed out.

The consequences for incompetence are literally just, ‘Ah, if they don’t like me, they can just vote me out.’ But a wily politician knows how to buy the population off or misdirect them just long enough to sneak back into power. Again, most of them seem to be untouchable.

To borrow a Navy model, in order to prevent witch hunts against politicians who were acting in good faith, Boards of Inquiry with actual teeth should be set up to police major political decisions that go sideways. Typically, with the present system, some underling falls on their sword and their sacrifice is held up as an appeasement to the masses to show that justice was done. In actual fact, the ‘sacrificial lamb’ usually just goes into purgatory for a few months then is soft parachuted to another cushy position, eg. Gerald Butts.

When a government policy goes sideways, the inquiry process needs to start at the top right at the Prime Minister if need be. Jail time and real consequences need to be on the table so that these officials are motivated to perform their best for Canadians.

There will of course have to be some checks and balances in order to not stall all government work due to a fear of making a mistake. But this type of system of accountability has worked for hundreds of years in the Royal Navy so it should be adaptable to government.

Elected government officials should meet minimum qualifications.

Rule One should be, just because you have a famous name or celebrity status does not make you eligible for political office. Depending on the level of government you are running for, you should already have a certain amount of leadership experience.

As examples, a captain of industry, military personnel with command experience, or leaders of their fields of interest should be the ones holding the reins of Canadian political power. Looking good in selfies and a penchant for showing off designer socks are not qualifications. Even a string of educational letters behind your name should not carry much weight if you have no experience in the real world. Canada deserves the best and the brightest to lead the country and represent our positions on the world stage.

The position of being a politician should be one that a person aspires to become not one which people view with derision.

Electoral platforms should be set at least one year in advance of the election.

Too often, such as with the last Federal Election, policies and their implications are swept aside as the narrative gets side-tracked over some inconsequential issue. It just shows our collective disdain for the political elite who are just going to do what they feel like anyways.

Instead, for the upcoming 10 year term, the proposed policies and their respective pros and cons need to be firmly and openly laid before the populace. Priorities need to be discussed, plans need to be drawn up, and deadlines need to be set. Failure to adhere to the plan will be met with consequences. As part of the consultation process, the population would have a strong say in what direction they would like the country to move in. But actual experts would also be given a say in order to blunt any populist movement that was based on misinformation, deceit, or foreign interference.

As an example, a solutions to the woes of Canadian Natives have been kicked down the road by successive Federal governments since the start of Confederation. Frankly, if real deadlines were imposed, it would deliver some motivation for some actual progress. People would have hope that they would have some real progress to look forward to.

This is not an exhaustive or perhaps even a practical list of political Canadian reforms. But if Canada does not do something soon to ease the political convulsions shaking our regions, it will possibly irreparably fracture our great country.

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Blair is a personification of a ‘Jack of All Trades and Master of None’. He has held several careers and has all the T-shirts. Time to add the title Blogger to the list.

January 18, 2019January 18, 2019

Observer of the Human Condition

The Religion of Panphobia

There seems to be a truism that the masses are most easily controlled by the powerful through the tool of fear.

Organized religion figured this out long ago. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife or thou shall suffer eternal damnation in the pit of hell plus all the other little chestnuts to be found in the Bible, Koran, and the other holy writs. For Krishna’s sake, don’t step on a worm or your karma will be screwed up!

The important bit was the ephemeral nature of the reward or punishment. The carrot that enticed the unwashed masses to this religion or that was the beautiful Heaven beyond the Pearly gates or the promise of the 72 virgins to slake your eternal lust. The stick involved the fire, devil, and pitchforks for eternity. The more sophisticated religions even threw in the concept of purgatory where the ‘white collar’ sinners could spend a century or two before moving on to salvation.

The key to the grand religion scam was man could never prove what exactly happened to your ‘soul’ when a person went to the great beyond. Coincidentally, the powerful figured out this was an excellent way of controlling their populations other than through brute force. Face it, when the major religions of today started their ascendancy, life for the average person was brutish, hard, and short. Pretty much, people didn’t have much to lose and someone was smart enough to hoodwink the common folk into self-policing themselves. Tell the narrative of thou shall not murder, steal, commit adultery, and especially the one about no other Gods but me and the populace constructs their own morals. It makes the job of the elite much easier and conveniently leaves them in the positions of power.

Then came the age of enlightenment and Western world organized religion started to collapse. We went and started educating everyone and settled on a democratic system of government. People’s lives got better, longer, and easier. They stopped buying in to the brimstone and damnation arguments.

But the old motivator of fear as an effective tool to rule humanity did not disappear. It only morphed into another form.

At no time in history has humanity had such access to knowledge. Literally every fact, theorem, or event is a Google click away for a sizeable chunk of our world’s population and more so every day. But what do we all focus on? Is it MIT studies of their latest engineering feats? Are we reading the collective works of Shakespeare or the other literary giants? Nope, we’re hooked on cat videos and Twitter feeds of vacuous celebrities.

And what are the high-tech power mongers selling to the hooked in, Internet surfing, Netflix watching masses? Fear!

The granddaddy of the latest scheme with their Gore, Suzuki, & DiCaprio prophets is of course the climate. It has been a brilliant strategy. Pick a cause with religious overtones, Mother Nature, Gaia, The Great Mother, toss in the ‘think of the children!’ argument, some Indigenous props, and showcase a hockey stick graph that describes how we’ll all burn and/or drown. Then throw in a few bogeymen like CO2 from burning fossil fuels or methane emissions from cattle and you have convenient strawmen for the masses to rail against and stick their pitchforks into.

During the 1800s, the Western world began to rightly separate church and state. This was done because science was starting to dispel religion’s dogma that hitherto been accepted fact. For example, despite the contemporary Flat Earth Society’s contrarian arguments, the world is indeed round(ish) and is easily proven to be so. Oh, and despite the Catholic church’s objections, the Earth is not the center of the Universe because Galileo used a scientific instrument (ie. A telescope) to determine that moons orbited Jupiter.

But Western society is undergoing a reintegration of the Church of Environmentalism/Progresive Liberalism/Political Correctness and the state. The faithful dutifully go about separating their refuse into the correct blue boxes, recycling bags, and composters. Diversity is our Strength. #MeToo. Governments push ‘green’ technology and to phase out dirty CO2 emitters. There are compulsory tithes (Carbon taxation) from all the sinners. Everyone should just get along and banish all borders. LGBTQQIP2SAA. Kumbaya!

Paradoxically, the truly faithful decry and denigrate actual facts contrary to their accepted tenets. In Canada, the actual recycle rate of plastic, despite decades of Blue Box campaigns, is only 11%. Clothing in North America is only recycled on the order of 1%. Solar and wind power, electric cars, and other ‘green’ technologies are turning out to be massive, expensive, tax paid failures. But the true believers turn a blind eye to contrary facts and call them heresy. Hey, as long as you separate your bottles and tin cans, ban plastic straws from your Starbucks latte, and use reusable grocery bags, why can’t you continue to enjoy running around in your gas guzzling SUV?

Of course, if you want to commit true blasphemy then call into question any of the accepted climatic change ‘facts’ and you’ll soon find out how many Facebook friends you’ll lose. The Arctic ice is melting and the polar bears are dying! Well, explain how there are more polar bears than ever and the Antarctic ice shelf is growing as confirmed by NASA. CO2 is a pollutant and is killing the planet! Well, CO2 is a vital building block for plants and they’re greener and more productive than ever. We’re all going to drown due to rising ocean levels. Oops, gotta keep moving those goal posts because as the decades go by on some of these claims, the facts don’t actually line up with reality.

But the real trick is to keep your population in that constant state of fear. This is accomplished by keeping your claims vague and shrouded in pseudo-science that can’t be easily disproven. How else would outfits like ‘Moms Across America’ be able to convince you that a few parts per billion of glyphosate detected in your bowl of Cheerios is going to cause your children to grow cancerous tumours. Despite thousands more in the bun, it will be the few extra hormones in your burger that are going to result in your daughter having breasts at the age of eight. The antibiotics in the chicken feed will create pandemic super-bugs. Gluten is bad for you. GMOs create Frankenfood. Vaccines cause autism. Animals should all be freed from their human enslavers and we should all be eating bean curd. Monsanto, Big Pharma, and government are all in on the ‘Big Conspiracy’. Of course, throw in Neo-Nazi, gun wielding, immigrant, white cops are going to kill us all, especially the Blacks. Shout your narrative long enough and even if it can be disproven, the converted won’t believe your claims anyways.

Life expectancy has dramatically risen with modern medicine but the fear tactic that garners the best results still involves death, usually by the dreaded disease of cancer. Not surprisingly, the most fervent of the faithful are women. It could be characterized by any one of the Brothers Grimm fables where the aging beauty fears the loss of their youth and vitality. Young, hot women instinctively know that their appeal has a short ‘Best Before Date’. Hence, the target market for the organic industry, celebrity fads, and ‘snake oil’ merchandise is female. Absurdly, after many decades of empowerment and equality, women have been sucked into supporting these flim flam movements. What sane individual would ever believe that sticking a jade egg up their twat was a good thing? Gwyneth Paltrow was laughing all the way to the bank.

This constant bombardment of fear mongering has created a neurotic, mis-informed, maladjusted population that is easily distracted and can be led around by the nose by the oligarchy who have tapped into this new religion.

Humanity does not move forward with ever increasing enlightenment and progress. Rather, the banal masses succumb to whoever shouts the loudest from the fanciest and best of soapboxes.

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Blair is a personification of a ‘Jack of All Trades and Master of None’. He has held several careers and has all the T-shirts. Time to add the title Blogger to the list.

January 30, 2018

POLITICAL OBSERVER – Deuxième Partie

#METOO Morphing into #WHOISNEXT

The Canadian political scene continues to be rocked by numerous sexual allegations against men. Even the ultra-feminist Prime Minister Trudeau is back-pedaling on how to handle the allegations within his own party. There is talk of a ‘whisper’ network amongst Parliamentary staffers as to who is grabbsy after a few drinks. There is an ominous online threat that some powerful male political leader is next. Storm clouds have gathered and there is a seeping, impending dread across the nation of who will next be struck by the #metoo lightning bolt from the murky heavens.

What is disturbing is this narrative that all women coming forward (but staying anonymous in many cases such as with Patrick Brown) with sexual harassment allegations must be believed implicitly because no woman has ever lied, withheld key contextual facts, coloured the truth, or has had ulterior motives that would benefit themselves, organizations they are affiliated with, or causes they believe in. After all, they are made of sugar and spice and all things nice. Their word of events, sometimes decades in the past, is to be taken as gospel irrespective of how much alcohol or drugs may have been involved. No matter how many years have passed, you can take their word for the fact that with no evidence, corroboration, or police reports, they have lived in shame for upwards of decades reliving the gospel truth day after day so that no single iota of whatever happened could never be twisted. Never mind the seeming coincidence that these revelations all seem to hit at the most inopportune times in order to maximize the downfall of these men. Never mind that a court of law has cleared men like Jian Ghomeshi of all charges. Women because of the sheer fact that they are women must never be questioned as to their veracity in these matters.

Before you start slamming me for being generalistic, I am only quoting the virtue signaling of Prime Minister Trudeau, “It is our duty to listen to them and to believe them.” Ontario Premier Wynne, “I believe victims when they come forward” and all the various political voices who all immediately came out to support and implicitly believe these ‘brave’ anonymous women immediately upon word of the allegations. Look up each and every political response and prove me wrong. We had a little business with a fake hijab attack incident recently that embarrassed these same politicians who were falling all over themselves to support this poor Islamic girl. What ever happened to waiting for a complete investigation? I neither support nor defend Mr. Brown or these other men. I do support due process and the chance for the accused to face their accuser. I support taking allegations seriously and having them properly investigated by the authorities. By authorities, reporters don’t count as their motivations can easily lean towards the old practice of sensationalism for ratings. I take serious umbrage with wholesale believing the accuser before a proper investigation takes place. There is a reason Lady Justice is depicted with a blindfold. Also, since allegations such as these can have such dire obvious consequences to the accused, they shouldn’t be made public until charges are laid. Otherwise, it’s just an old fashioned lynch mob with a rope.

Ah, but many people are of the opinion that there is no such thing as ‘due process’ when it comes to politics. Throw the disgusting man out on his rear! Tar and feathers is too good for his kind of ilk! We don’t want his kind as our LEADER! We always knew there was something wrong with him! Believe the WOMEN! Believe the WOMEN! Those are the cries of the vengeful mob hunting for justice. How convenient that it is only when it comes to sex, that now we determine to hold politicians accountable for their leadership qualities. Politicians of all stripes and both genders commit atrocious blunders and boondoggles costing billions of taxpayer dollars all the time. But one little whiff of impropriety when it comes to the relationship of a man with a woman and somehow that is the tipping point.

The actions of the CTV reporters who investigated the Patrick Brown allegations are merely a modern version of yellow journalism and muckraking. They knew the likely consequences of their sensationalist ‘revelations’ a few months before a major election. That’s a lot of power to wield and easily a recipe for abuse. Every reporter will be clamoring to speak with all the office staffers about their experiences. What woman is going to deny she has never heard a coarse word, maybe had a hand linger on a shoulder a second too long, or had a pass thrown at her that was rebuffed? Ordinary actions have now become sinister, powerful ammunition used to support the feminist narrative that all men are rapists.

Every man, especially those in powerful positions, can now be anonymously accused of sexual wrong-doing without official sanction and it will be up to him to prove innocence as guilt will be implied and his reputation forever stained.

To quote a Medium.com author, Proudly Unaffiliated, ‘And I always thought that a Witch Hunt was about people hunting for witches. But it looks like that a Witch Hunt is really a hunt conducted by witches that are after men and their resources.’

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Blair is a personification of a ‘Jack of All Trades and Master of None’. He has held several careers and has all the T-shirts. Time to add the title Blogger to the list.

January 18, 2018

POLITICAL JUNKIE

Trudeau before becoming PM looking and acting as the perfect metrosexual PC man

Canada’s Beta Prime Minister

Trudeau is having a rough time of it lately with lapses of judgement in the race to shore up his Muslim ideology.

Many of the country’s populace and politicians jumped on the alleged assault of an 11 year old girl by a man who was trying to cut her hijab off. Instead of waiting for a complete investigation, which ended up taking only a day or two extra, Justin Trudeau and the Premier of Ontario, Kathleen Wynne rushed to decry this latest example of Islamophobia. The entire story ended up being a farce.

On Dec 19, the PM hosted Joshua Boyle and his family in his office. The family had just returned to Canada after years of being held by the Taliban. There were always questions as to why the man was backpacking in Afghanistan in the first place with his pregnant wife who ended up giving birth to three children in captivity. It seems that almost immediately upon their return to Canada, he started beating his wife (this is by inference) and now faces 15 separate serious charges.

This past November, the Liberals started to be brought to task over Canadian nationals returning from fighting with ISIS. The Liberals have been somewhat less than convincing wrt properly bringing these enemy combatants to justice compared to other nations.

This past March, the Liberals felt the need to pass Bill M-103, the so called Islamophobia bill even though Canada has long had strict laws against religious discrimination in all its forms.

Lastly, there was a bitter debate over the 10.5 million CAD payout to Omar Khadr this past year. The move was bitterly opposed by the majority of Canadians but Trudeau stated that the man’s Charter rights needed defending. Meanwhile, returning Canadian Armed Forces troops are seen as not receiving the help and support they deserve. As a kicker, Vice Admiral Mark Norman who was 2nd in command of the CAF until his police investigation started over a year ago, still sits in limbo. To this day, he has ‘still never officially been provided the reasoning for his unprecedented removal as vice-chief of the defence staff. He has never received a military hearing on the matter, and there has been no independent examination of the facts of his case.’ His supposed crime: he attempted to kick-start the process to equip the Royal Canadian Navy with a sorely needed supply ship of which the RCN has been without for years. His efforts put egg on the face of the newly elected Trudeau government and he’s been made to pay the price for the actions of a patriot.

Trudeau on his Canadian Charm offensive regarding NAFTA talks

Trudeau and his ‘Sunny Ways’ gang have a particular ideology and political correctness agenda. He plays well with the selfie types, jet-setters, and elites of the world with his smooth patter, PC ways, love for feminism, devotion to the environment and fancy socks. He also has the ability to cry on cue when he’s apologizing for the latest indignity Canadians have inflicted on this group or another. I don’t want to be mean-spirited but if you look at his body language when he meets with Trump, he looks like the little boy who has been invited to the adult table. It even appears as if he’s crossing his ankles with his knees firmly together in the picture above. Isn’t that how women wearing skirts usually sit?

Justin did shorten his hair after being elected PM as it was a political point the Conservatives were trying to make fun of. It’s more difficult for the adults to tousle now.

Blair’s LinkedIn Profile

Blair is a personification of a ‘Jack of All Trades and Master of None’. He has held several careers and has all the T-shirts. Time to add the title Blogger to the list.

January 22, 2017February 25, 2017

SHEPARD

The New Religion

The First World is witnessing the coalescence of the Religious Age of Irrationality.

Traditional forms of Catholicism, Anglicanism, Protestantism and the rest of mainstream religion has waned in the West and in their place, the religious fervor of social activism and irrationality has risen.

Human beings crave a calling that is beyond their ken and full explanation. The vast majority of humanity toils from cradle to grave with very little individual impact upon this mortal world. Frankly, without a bit of order, large groups of people easily descend into outright anarchy with the strongest and the cleverest ending up on top. The ones in positions of power had to figure out a system to keep the rabble in line or the cycle of anarchy would repeat and the next set of clever and strong humans would be in charge. Enter the ages of gods and organized religions.

Millennia ago the Egyptian pharaoh’s were the earthly equivalent of gods. Kings and queens since have had god-like status conferred upon them. Their word was law. Even heads of state, such as President Trump’s swearing-in invoke the name of God. But gradually, especially in the First World, the wonder, awe and fear of these figures have worn and been chipped away. Most royalty are merely figureheads and tourist attractions. These are mere human beings after all, kings and queens, the Pope, heads of church, prime ministers and presidents. They are not mythical beings who can smite us at will, any rational person can see they are just trying to keep the rest of us in line while keeping humanity back from the abyss of anarchy.

But instead of this being an Age of Rationality the First World has made a sharp U-turn and this is becoming the Age of Irrationality. There is an unprecedented Age of Information sweeping the world where the average person has access to untold amounts of data. Every First Worlder should be able to look at what information is available, listen to the experts on a particular subject and then be able to come to a consensus opinion on what direction the group as a whole should decide upon. Instead, there is an overabundance of information and the clever have learned how to cherry pick which pieces to push their agendas. Then just like the old school religions, their ministers like the Al Gores, Michael Moores, David Suzukis, through their ministries of Greenpeace, Black Lives Matter, PETA, (Insert name of your favourite activist group or random Native group) indoctrinate their disciples to spread the politically correct word. Do not get me wrong, everyone is entitled to their opinion but it is the religious zealot who continuously pushes their agenda on others and cries heresy if you don’t agree with them and adopt their lifestyle.

Try having a rational conversation with the vegan crowd, the anti-vaxxers, the LGBTQIA/LGBTQ2 groups (these people? are going to run out of letters soon), feminists, chemtrail believers, animal rights activists, seal hunt protesters, pro-organic, anti-oil sands, anti-pipeline, anti-sugar, anti-gluten, anti-smoking but pro-marijuana, anti-GMO, anti-hormone, anti-antibiotic, anti-everything groups and individuals. Even in the face of clear, incontrovertible proof and facts, they will still hold fast to their faith. Oh, this celebrity said this. Oh, there was a study. Oh, it is all a conspiracy or all the experts were paid off by such and such industry. Oh, the middle-aged white man made a patriarchal remark that mocked some (insert ethic group). Or in the cases such as how to mitigate changes in the climate, man-made or not, you cannot allow rational discussion enter the conversation because Mother Earth must be protected at all costs and make sure you are consulting a Native group. Latest and greatest, oh, the Russians did it!

We even have the high-tech equivalent of the Holy Inquisition from the Dark Ages in Europe. Recently, the internet again set its hair on fire over an animal supposedly being mistreated. The film company releasing ‘A Dog’s Purpose’ cancelled the premier of the show over the social media controversy of a dog doing a stunt in the water. As is the norm with these social media lynchings, the persons involved were tried, convicted and ‘executed’ with the speed of the internet. I won’t even tread towards gorillas, orcas or lions.

The latest testament to this new Religion of Irrationality is the millions of First Worlders participating in the Women’s March protests partly due to the election of Trump vice Hillary. I am sure a sizable portion of the crowds wanted to see a woman in the White House but a man was elected, again. A man who is not politically correct. A man who was secretly taped over a decade ago making derogatory remarks reference women. A man who has ideas that counter the anti-everything crowd. But he is the person who has the legal support of his nation that elected him. That nation also saw fit to put in a Republican House and Senate. But this is not about politics but perceptions, myths and larger than life ideologies.

As I watch the Women’s March in Washington, DC (reportedly the largest one day US protest) and smaller gatherings around the world, listening to their speakers, I hear fears of bigotry, misogyny, eroding of women’s and minority’s rights. I did not hear anything of the sort promised by Trump in his Inauguration speech yesterday. If anything, he quoted the phrase of no matter the colour of skin, we all bleed the same. The man is definitely a boor but some would say he is a straight talker who wants to get things done. What is so bad about an American president wanting to look after Americans first? So what would make people so passionate, angry and upset? If it were just over policy and politics then these same people would be involved in local government talking about sewers, roads and bridges. Maybe, if people were concerned about the bigger picture, how about the fact that Obama is the only two term President with eight full years of war under his belt with no end in sight. I guess as long as the bombs drop on Third World countries then we can have the luxury of worrying about hurt feelings. But when it comes time to vote, no one shows up. Local municipal elections barely record over 20% voter turnout and even this last so-called hotly contested presidential contest only saw about 50% of eligible voting Americans making the effort. If a person is so upset about something, then rationally, you would think they would gather up all their friends and do something like vote their wishes. Instead, the norm is becoming if you did not bother to vote and your wishes were not granted, then march in the streets and bust up the place.

In polite company, the convention is to refrain from discussing the three trigger subjects: sex, politics and religion. But your grandparent’s religious arguments over Old and New Testament are gone. A vacuum was left by the retreat of established religion and it is being replaced by something just as irrational. As a species we seem to crave being part of something greater, something larger than life, something that says our existence in this world counts for something whether it makes sense or not. It is just human nature for us to put visceral, irrational ‘faith’ in something that transcends our regular existence.

Welcome to the New Age.

Blair is a personification of a ‘Jack of All Trades and Master of None’. He has held several careers and has all the T-shirts. Time to add the title Blogger to the list.

Blair’s Profile