In Praise Of Longos

Or as I call it, Samples.

Today, for example, they were giving out Fuya Fruit*, Turkey Sausage, Kobasa, Blue Cheese, Prosciutto Pizza, and Gouda Cheese on a cracker.  Something from every food group!  I figure I sucked back about 2,400 absolutely free calories.

I do this trick where I walk in wearing my glasses and hit all the sample booths two or three times in the first ten minutes. Then when they start wondering what's with the guy with the glasses? I take them off and carry my coat over my arm.  The staff don't recognize me right away, and I can get in another circuit or two!

Because when you have a mortgage to pay every free cracker counts.

* Looks kind of like a small tomato but is a sugary delight.

The Alberta Climate Plan: Is Ezra Levant Right?

Not when he says the oil companies don't represent the oil companies, but in his generally negative attitude towards the whole thing?  Well, let's play Devil's advocate for a minute.  What does Alberta get from the rest of the planet for imposing on itself an economy-wide carbon tax?  We know what it wants: pipelines West and South so it can sell its oil to Asia.   Nobody really cares about Energy East.

But Keystone is dead.  So we're down to Northern Gateway and Transmountain.   Does the plan buy them either?  Well, the Trudeau government is going to formally ban oil tankers along B.C.'s North coast, so Northern Gateway is still dead.  What about Transmountain?  Well, a lot of the opposition to this line has nothing to with climate change, and of course there is a faction in the enviro community who would like the oil-sands shut down regardless of any commitments to better behavior the province and the oil companies might make.  They won't be swayed.  So maybe Transmountain goes through, or maybe not, but even if so it will be years down the line and billions spent along the proposed route to grease the skids before its open.  And who knows whether the market will need it by then.

And that's the only prize Alberta gets...potentially...from the whole endeavor.  So: good for the planet, good for Canada, but arguably not so great for Alberta.

On Adele: A Brief Note

Finally connected that singer called "Adele" with an actual tune, on a radio station I wouldn't normally listen to.  Gawd she sucks.  The Youth Of Today...The YOTS...The Millennials...listen to royally shitty music.  Its like they took every electric guitar that ever existed and buried them in a field somewhere and replaced them  with a lot of overproduced bloopy sounding synthesizer noises.

As a result I, as a near-senior, an old x-hippy from the 70s, am starting to feel less guilty about exploiting them, if they're going to listen to crap like this.  When I'm 90 and they're 50 I'll fly into McDs on my jewel encrusted walker with a jet-pack attached and demand my free coffee and throw dimes on the floor when they look at me sad-eyed for a tip.

I blame cell-phones for the YOT's dissolute nature.  They give off magnetic fields (the cell phones, not the YOTs, although maybe they do too), and kids carry them around in their pants all the time and irradiate their nads.

This kind of thing could cure them:

...but I doubt they'll listen.

No, Donald Trump Didn't Say Muslims Should Be Issued Special Badges.

What he said is he wouldn't rule out giving them some form of special identification that noted their religion.  This could be a badge, but it might also be a chip-card, or an arm-band, or maybe a tattoo.  Get it right, Liberal Media Party.

Kirsty Duncan: The Science Minister And Science

So Kirsty Duncan once supported a "largely disproven MS treatment" known as chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency, or CCSVI.  And indeed it seems like the treatment is not particularly effective, and the theory behind it hasn't been borne out.  But it might have been.  It takes time to determine such things; they can't usually be shown a priori. And most of her statements in regards to CCSVI are several years old; the Motherboard (who?) thing refers to the presentation of a parliamentary petition, which usually does not signify commitment from the MP doing the presenting (although I admit I once mercilessly hounded CPC MP Mike Lake over this).  And in Science its OK to get things wrong; the problem is persisting in folly when your wrongness has been demonstrated.  We shall see how Ms. Duncan conducts herself in future re this issue.  That's the proof in the pudding.

PS.  The remainder of the NP article reads like a gossip column, so I didn't bother addressing the claims in it.

PPS.  This is genuinely douchy.  Sure its just another junk email in your inbox, and I'm sure Kent Hehr's original sentiments were genuine.  But its still using Remembrance Day to harvest email addresses so as to hit people up for donations a few months down the line.  Tut Tut! Justin Trudeau. Tut Tut! 

The Death Of Keystone: A Brief Analysis

There will be celebrations, but it strikes me as anti-climactic.  Lucky timing for the new government, though; its way too soon for it to have to wear any of the failure.   Whereas this decision will be the big fat fucking failing cap-stone to the too-long-but-now-ending political career of Stephen Harper. And I think Justin's nominal pro-Keystone stance was quite clever.  It was a bit like supporting the continued existence of the sun and the moon.  It ain't up to you, so why not?  But why not go the other way a la Mulcair?  Well, there were potential votes out West to be harvested for being a least a little "pro-pipeline", and support for Keystone could be used as a vote-harvesting carrot, even if it was a carrot made of smoke and mirrors.  Mulcair refused to wave the fake carrot, and lost.  Not that this was the sole reason he lost.  There was also that increasingly tattered looking beard. 

Anyway, going forward, I'm betting against Northern Gateway; I am inclined against Trans Mountain; and I suspect Energy East will pipe oil (or whatever) one day.