Life In Scarborough: The Plague Journal, Day I

This evening at the local Metro  I saw something resembling "panic buying".  Not quite at that point. Nobody got violent.  More like the kind of lineups you see before the Superbowl or a long-weekend.  Except everyone, everyone, was buying toilet paper and bottled water.  Nobody was buying beer.

Which doesn't make any sense: you buy toilet paper and bottled water when you're expecting the Zombie apocalypse, or basic services to fail, not when you're expecting a sharp economic downturn. 

I wonder if these people know something I don't?

On The Existence of Street Pianos In Toronto Community Centers

I used to be totally against them.  It was always some no-talent eight year old plinking out a ghastly version of Chopsticks and you can't tell them they suck or STFU! because their parents will get upset and report you to the facility staff because you haven't positively uplifted  their precious snowflake.

But now I am actually listening to some guy with honest-to-gawd training and it isn't so bad.  He's playing some classical shit.  "BA DA LOONG DOONG DOONG PING!  PING! PING! PING!  BA DA LOONG DOONG DOONG PING!  PING! PING! PING!"  Maybe Mozart.  Definitely not Zep, and not that Billy Eyelash kid.  You notice she's always getting nose-bleeds, by the way?  In every video I watch.  She's anemic and she should see a doctor.  And her brother, who writes her stuff,  should go into a used music store somewhere and buy an electric guitar.  They're probably cheap as fuck these days because  young musicians don't know what to do with them.  Billy's brother could rediscover the power chord or something.

In any case, he should buy his Sis some iron tablets.

As for these electric guitar thingys.  They use them in the video below.  Young people should take note.  They would make your music suck way less.

National Post Publishes Correction

BOOYAH!  JOB DONE!  The Natty Post corrects in response to this story:

Editor’s note: In the original article, Michael Rogers intended to say “early evolutionary ancestors” instead of Neanderthals when speaking about the agricultural revolution. As well, he intended to say there’s no anthropological evidence of Type 2 diabetes, not Type 1. All changes have been made in his quotes. 

Not even sure the phrase "early evolutionary ancestors" cuts it science-wise in this context but fuck it I'm in  a good mood.  We'll let it go.  Kudos to Bianca Bharti for fixing things and being a good sport about it.  As for Doc Rogers, well they say he is from the University of Guelph.  I had a friend who went there.  When I asked him what it was like he said Guelph is the sound a whale makes when it swallows.  I don't know what that means but I don't think its a compliment.

National Post Publishes Absolute Bullshit Re Beyond Meat

The absolute bullshit is this bit:

“For the last million years, we’ve evolved with a very specific diet that’s been based on whole foods,” [Michael] Rogers said. “There hasn’t been a change in our diets this drastic in all of human evolution with the exception of one event in human history: when the Neanderthals ventured from forests into pastoral land and started … agricultural practices,” more than 12,000 years ago.

I don't know who Michael Rogers is, but this kind of quote is the kind of thing that makes you think he isn't much of an expert.  I mean, the timing of wheat domestication is about right, a couple thousand years too early, maybe.  But the species is wrong.  The last Neanderthals walked maybe 40,000 years before crops were domesticated, unless Mr. Rogers knows something nobody else does.

Seriously, this is a big fat fucking boner of a mistake: Neanderthals invented agriculture.  BULLSHIT!!!   That the NP published it without  fact checking is embarrassing.  And if you are trying to criticize alt-meat, making this kind of claim isn't going to help.

PS.  I have never tried a Beyond Meat product nor do I have an opinion on the company.

Trans Mountain Pipeline Approved

...but far from built.

 I've talked about this  before.  My opinion is that Trudeau did the right thing by approving the pipeline.  You can't really rule this country if the entire middle bit hates your guts because you took away their one salable product.  (Well, that's an exaggeration: Sask has wheat; Alta. has pig shit; and Manitoba has Winnipeg, the Miami of the frozen tundra, for tourism.  But I digress).  And the upcoming election is basically Libs vs. Tories with the two hippy parties as possible spoilers.  Who would you prefer on the climate file, the guys who instituted a National Carbon Tax or the guys who are taking Doug Ford's climate plan national?

But I don't think it should be built, and am pretty sure it won't be built.  And this is due to the lawsuits various FN and other actors will launch, and the mass protests outside of Vancouver that will happen if the lawsuits fail. Which means that today's announcement is a sideshow at best. But I'm betting we don't even get to the "George-Clooney-chains-himself-to-a-bulldozer" stage of things.  I suspect the reason "consultations" with FN groups have failed in the past is that if they were ever done property the result would be too expensive for the oil companies to proceed.  I suspect that will be the case in the future.   But the point is there is more than one way to skin a cat and we shouldn't expect the Trudeau government to have to skin all the cats all the time.

Mann Wins!!!! Frontier Centre for Public Policy FOLDS!!!!!!!!!!!!

Congratulations to Dr. Michael Mann for successfully putting the boots to Winnipeg's Frontier Centre for Public Policy.  They defamed him; he fought back and won.  See their grovelling apology below.  Bask in their tears.   Not much to say other than  note the dates when the first lies were told: 2011 and 2012.  Seven or eight years between the time someone allegedly defames you and the time some court says they did or didn't, is about average in this country.  You have to have a sticktoitiveness to carry the whole thing through to the end that not many people possess.  Good on Mr. Mann for hanging in there.

And there's still Mark Steyn's ass left to kick.  I so look forward to the day.

PCPO Budget Is Mild Stuff

I don't like the directions taken; cutting healthcare spending below the rate of inflation, and etc.  But this government in this budget is definitely no Mike Harris Mark II.   Mind you, they'll never meet their deficit reduction targets at this rate, but they've probably figured that nobody really gives a shit.  So the PCPO has learned something over the last 20 years.  Mind you also, they're still on course for a battle with the OTF and a possible teacher's strike, maybe as soon as the summer (I think the contracts come up July 2019).  Open battles with Ontario's teachers are a losing proposition, which is another thing Mike Harris never learned.  People say they love their kids but actually raising them through their school years is a pain in the ass.  They get resentful if the government makes them do it.  We'll see if Ford and co. figure this one out as well.

Doug Ford's OHIP Changes: A Bummer, or Not?

I'm especially wondering about his plan to cut back on pain relief for colonoscopies.  I've gone through the procedure twice.  First time around they hit me with a General and I still didn't pass out.  I watched on a B&W TV screen as they maneuvered the probe up and down my ass.  It was like watching a guy wandering through a big sewer system with a cheap flashlight.  I pointed at the TV and asked what's that and the doctor said motherfucker you're awake you must really know your way around narcotics!  But I don't remember any actual pain, so maybe I'm with Doug on this one.

Mind you, they also want to cut funds for pain relief when they remove the polyps they find during the colonoscopy.  I didn't have polyps, but from what I hear what they do is they stick the end of the probe in some liquid oxygen so its really cold, they nail the polyp with the cold end so it freezes/burns like a wart, but one that's up your ass.  And then they send another probe with snippers at its end to snip the thing off. 

So I think Doug loses me here.

Life In Scarborough: The Fried Pork Rinds of Scarborough

Was inside the Jian Hing market at Markham and Lawrence on Family Day, looking for Filipino  Pork Rinds.  They have about 40 different varieties at Jian Hing.  I'm not kidding, there's a whole aisle devoted to nothing but.  Filipino  Pork Rinds are basically deep-fried pig-skin; you can get them either  "fat on" or "fat off", which means there's chunks of deep-fried pork-fat still stuck to them, or not.  I usually buy the "fat off" kind.  I prefer  the "fat on" version, but if I eat too much my sodium level spikes and the water in my inner ear backs up and I get the bed-spins for a week.

So I'm in the cash-line behind this old Filipino guy.  He looks at my 2 big bags of Chicharron Old Fashioned Fat Off Flavor and asks.  "You like those?"

I say: "Yes.  They're good, not good for you.  I know that."

And he laughs and tells me how they eat them back home.  Apparently, they dip them in vinegar, which seems redundant to me, like stuffing an H-Bomb full of gunpowder.  And  they also dip them in some kind of red or black pepper sauce.

When we have both gone through the line  I say "take care" and he says "stay healthy" the way Stanley Tucchi says "be careful" to Zach Quinto in that scene from Margin Call.

Flying Today

Horrible behavior but  it wouldn't have happened 50 yrs ago because everyone would have had enough leg room.  I flew Air Canada Rouge (@AirCanadaRouge) in 2018 and it was  like being crew on a WWI submarine.  Something has to change.

Toronto The Unready

WTF happened?  Did the dispatcher pass out just before the storm hit?  Did the plow-guy bust a leg trying to smuggle a hooker into the barracks through a back window?  Or did they stop at VP and say Fuck it its Scarborough lets turn around and plow The Bridle Path twice?  The city's East-end this morning is a snowy hell-scape with near impassable roads!  But the thing is, as soon as you get North of Steeles the streets are bare, even the side-streets...even the arena parking lots.  So it can be done.  And yet Markham Road, the main drag out this way, is like the trail out of Zeballos.  If I wanted to live in the countryside, I would move there. 

Scarborough should secede and join Markham, or maybe Pickering, whoever gives the best deal on snow-plow services.  I hear there's always something exciting going on in Pickering.

On Dr. Jordan Peterson: The True And Real Story

He's a con artist.  He's got a book, he's got a speaking tour, and when's he's not flogging the book he's flogging his daughter's all meat diet to get his army of fan-boys Manly for the next battle in the Culture Wars.  Real intellectuals don't do that kind of thing. Yes Ben Shapiro sells diet supplements, but it's not a good look on him either.  He's a con artist too.

And yes Peterson is Far Right as anything,  misogynistic but with other dark stuff thrown in for good measure.  Climate change denial, for example.

But mostly the guy is off-the-hook bonkers.  For example, look at this illustration from Maps of Meaning, his first book:


I mean WTF?  I knew a guy on Vancouver Island who drew shit like this, long ago, usually pictures of the Universe with Him at its center.  You'd see him sometimes walking along the Trans-Canada highway barefoot collecting beer-cans in a sack and yelling at the demon perched on his shoulder.  But these days he could probably score a gig opening for Peterson on a Teenage Republican sponsored tour of U.S. campuses.

And there's more!  Peterson wants everyone to act like Lobsters.  In fact he really, really, really digs lobsters, which are admittedly a most noble crustacean, but he takes it to the point where you gotta wonder.  And he once advocated for "enforced monogamy", which is making woman have sex with men they don't like.  Although this may be less a sign of a mental disturbance than an attempt to advocate on behalf of his fans.

Because his fans tend to be what I call Incel-bertarians.  Libertarians are young men who attempt to ground Conservative political beliefs in Rational Theory; Incels are young men who have given up on relationships and are saving to buy a Sexbot.  Therefore: Incel-bertarian.  See?  So Peterson fans are typically young men who aren't getting laid.  Think college Conservative Club members, or that pysch major who would wander around the University cafeteria with a clip-board trying to get people to take his dumb survey.  I suspect Peterson is just trying to show these guys that he is on their side, maybe score them some nooky.

Anyway, he's nuts.  Its hard to spot from the youtube videos sometimes because he drones on endlessly, and the really far-out bits are hidden in a thick fog of Jungian hoo-hah and exhortations to clean your room and floss.  There is also a cottage industry among his followers devoted to reinterpreting his crazy talk to make it sound normal.  Sometimes he loses a few of them; he did over the enforced monogamy thing.  One or two of his people finally said "Fuck it ole Doc Lobster has gone round the bend this time!".  But there seems to be an endless supply of youthful suckers out there willing to step in and "offer context" (ie blow smoke) whenever their guru spouts off like a loon and then needs a rhetorical smoke screen to retreat behind.

And as for the intellectual underpinnings of the stuff he's peddling...the guy's a fucking psychoanalyst!  I didn't know they still existed!  And its old-school psychoanalysis he's talking, not even the hip kind that Frenchy POMOs like Jacques Lacan spun!  Not that Lacan made it any less Bullshit; never take Life Lessons from people who eat snails.  But the point is when I was young that kind of crap was on its way out! Karl Popper had kicked its ass down the stairs!  But now  I wake up and its like they're playing Grand Funk on the radio again.  I get flashbacks, and not the happy trippy kind either. And I also feel a certain amount of guilt from the situation.  Jordan Peterson is a creature from my time!  Or at least his ideas are.

But he's also got me feeling down in regards to today's youth.  Does nobody read Conjectures and Refutations anymore?  How are these young people falling for such ancient rubbish?  Its a bit like Disco.  My generation fought and bled to destroy Disco and now the Millennials are back listening to Disco, flailing about like fools on the dance floor!

So my feelings are ambiguous.

But probably the worst thing about Peterson is he's a Beardist ...


...meaning he has grown beards and has a favorable opinion of beards and, consciously or not, encourages the maintaining of this disgusting facial hair among his followers.  If I were offering any advice to Peterson fans I would say forget the Feminists, The Cultural Marxists, or cleaning your room.  The worst problem you have is your beard.  Shave the fucking thing.  It doesn't make you manly, it makes you unsanitary.  Scrofulous, in fact.  You don't need one unless you lack a proper chin.  And you're never going to be a Viking; you're going to work for minimum wage in a job that has been deemed too unsafe for the company robots.  That beard might get caught in something and your whole face could get sucked into the machinery. Furthermore,  beards drain testosterone from your nads and blood from your brain, and,  as my mom used to say, beards are what escaped convicts grow to cover identifying facial scars.

It is always correct to despise a bearded man.  We should all face the future clean shaven.

On Stephen Miller and Glue Eating

There has been much ridicule directed at Trump adviser Stephen Miller for an alleged childhood habit of drying glue on his arm, and then eating it .  Obviously, I disagree with the guy's politics but many people don't realize that glue is just full of glucose (sugar), and therefore mildly sweet in flavor.  As for the arm thing, well, it can be prepared in many different ways.

And there is a certain amount of class hate in the criticism.  Most people have no idea what its like to hear their mom say, "The horses didn't pay off this week, kid, so there's no money for noodles.  Here's a bottle of Elmer's multi-purpose.  Just take tiny sips." 

Mind you I hear Miller's folks were loaded, so he clearly has other problems.  

Doug Ford Shits The Bed

And its not just the nation as a whole that thinks he's a right douche-bag.  It's here in Ontario:

In Ontario Doug Ford is 24% positive – 51% negative (-27).

Once a star, Doug Ford is now a case.  It happens to all leaders, but as it ever happened as fast??

Corbella Column Pulled

This morning The Calgary Herald published a story by  Licia Corbella, entitled "Family of jailed Saudi blogger angry over Trudeau".  In it Corbella criticized government's twitter diplomacy efforts in the Raif Badawi case, directly quoting members of the man's family.  As you will note by clicking through the link above, that column is now gone.  Mr. Badawi's wife, in  a series of tweets early this afternoon, called the story "fake news".  Those tweets are also gone, as is all reference to the story in Ms. Corbella's twitter feed.  I contacted The Herald and asked if they had yanked the piece, and they responded as below:

The column has been removed at the request of Ensaf Haidar (wife of imprisoned blogger Raif Badawi) due to the sensitive nature of the family's situation.

— Calgary Herald (@calgaryherald) August 14, 2018

So there appears to have been a severe cock-up on the journalism front by Ms. Corbella, the precise details of which remain obscure.  It wouldn't be the first time.

Life In Scarborough: Gulls Before A Storm

So the wife and I spent our evening  on the balcony of our condo unit drinking a bottle of wine.  We noticed a flock of  gulls in the air, surfing the turbulence in advance of a line of storm clouds.  These were  the same gulls that usually inhabit the roof of a Metro across the parking lot from us, standing in their 100s in the shallow puddles that form after a rain.  Normally you imagine them groundlings, begging for a wedge fry from people going to and from their cars.

But tonight they had all taken to the air. And they were like a mob of kids on their skate-boards.  This was not about looking for a meal.  It was all about skidding sideways like the guys in Tokyo Drift, but through the sky, and diving and darting and pulling a rivals tail-feathers in full flight and swooping low and then sailing 100% vertical on a hot  current.

And their squawking seemed exultant, not at all like the sound they make fighting over the spilled guts of a squirrel someone has run over with their car.

Its nice to watch animals "having fun".  They are always so into it.

Ontario Election Leadership Debate Analysis

I didn't watch it.  I was eating wings in my favorite wings place watching a hockey game.  But I was checking my twitter feed occasionally, and this is what I gleaned from it.

1) Kathleen Wynne's opening pitch speech was good.  Something about yeah you hate me but you like my policies sorry sorry sorry yada yada.  She got a few good jabs in later against Doug Ford.

2) Doug Ford fumbled the Nazi meme thing.  "You are all motherfuckin' Nazis," he said of the NDP.  He also looked "stiff".  Which, if you've ever met the guy...you can mistake him for a cardboard cutout of himself.

3) Andrea Horwath didn't say anything worth noting, as far as I can tell.  But she didn't get trapped into anything either.  So for her that's a win.

So maybe a 0-0-0 draw, or  0-0 negative 1 score for Mr. Ford for misplaying the Nazi card.

Doug Ford Shouldn't Let Andrew Lawton Run For PCPO Nomination in London

Andrew Lawton is running for  the Ontario PC party’s nomination in London West.  Doug Ford should not let him.

For many reasons, but this one is my favorite.  Back in 2010 Andrew and some buddies wanted to bring alt-right notable Mark Steyn to London (Ontario).  First to the  University of Western Ontario and then, when that fell through, to the London  Convention Center.  But it all went South on them at the LCC as well, and they blamed Islam.  From Andrew's old blog, which doesn't appear to exist anymore:

“The reason offered by the LCC [in a Tuesday morning phone call] was that they had received pressure from local Islamic groups, and they didn’t want to alienate their Muslim clients. It’s interesting to note that the LCC is owned by the City of London, and is therefore a government operation,” wrote Strictly Right’s Andrew Lawton at the website.

But as I argue here, Andrew's explanation doesn't work.  Basically, the site for Steyn's speech had already changed once, and it would have been impossible for any of these "Islamic groups" to have known which new potential venue to threaten.

Andrew actually responded to my argument in the comments, and pretty much admitted the major points of it.  As I wrote at the time:

Andrew,

So will you acknowledge that, whatever you might have been told by the LCC, it would have been impossible for local "Islamic Groups" to have had any real influence on their decision. This is not to say anything about the LCCs decision making processes, which may well have involved considerations about what how their Muslim clients might have reacted to Steyn's appearance.

So, in short, Andrew Lawton tried to arrange to have an alt-right lunatic speak at the LCC, bunged it up, and blamed Muslims.  If Doug Ford wants to convince Ontarians he isn't a Trump clone, one way to do it  would be to kibosh this nomination run.

Caroline Mulroney: Off To A Grand Start!

Caroline Mulroney defined energy poverty at #MNC2018 as only an elitist can.

"People are living in energy poverty, people have to choose between buying hockey equipment or going out to dinner with their families"https://t.co/AF582tnkGo#PCPO #PCPOLdr pic.twitter.com/RSMtT9dUSm

— JohnToryWatch (@JohnToryWatch) February 10, 2018

Serious, though, this is the kind of thing that makes Doug Ford PCPO leader.

Ezra And The Law: A Small Victory?

Ezra Levant's twitter feed from back in the fall of 2017:

Ezra's twitter feed today, after I sent a series of emails to the Alberta Law Society and then the Law Society of  Ontario arguing that, since the guy is no longer a lawyer, he shouldn't be allowed to go around calling himself one:

Now, correlation does not = causation, but I know the Ontario body was in touch with him (File 2017-211411), and I'd like to think I helped in a small way to make Ezra's life more miserable.