Month: February 2023

PN:

Joe’s Comment – Ha!  I got seduced by a “false Spring” early this week.  I started thinking about shaving off my beard, getting a hair cut, even taking a shower!
Spring was in the air…..
Poof!
Back to Winter, with accompanying winter madness®, and an advanced case of cabin fever©.
What’s new……
As Charles Barsotti (RIP) so sublimely states above, don’t tell me.
There are a number of things to look forward to, but no snow or ice on the ground will be a celebration around here.
In the meantime, for inspiration, another of the fabulous Mr. Barsotti’s observations –

 

Ideas

Corporate Fascism
An inherent challenge with capitalism is based on a hierarchical reality – a successful business, in order to grow, must attract an ever increasing demand for its product.  However, infinite growth is not possible (despite close approximations by very successful organizations in the past), because the market is finite.  Yet the stockholders / principals demand their pound of flesh…..
Any return on investment depends on profit margin and volume, which in turn requires increased demand for existing or new / novel products or services released to a bullish market.
This problem was known many years ago.
Various “solutions” were tried (spoiler: there is no solution).
In Western history, an early solution manifested itself as monopoly, bequeathed by the crown or the government.  An interesting article about monopolies in Elizabethan parliaments here.
Elizabeth I granted monopolies and created a patent system for the “commen wealth” (not a spelling mistake), to promote and foster economic growth, encourage investment and enterprise, and create employment.
There were negative results from such non-free trade / non-open market crown dictated legislation.  In the 1571 parliament, Robert Bell claimed “‘by lycenses a fewe were enriched and the multitude impoverished’.”
And so it goes.
Some effort over the years has been spent to keep things in balance.
Indeed, some outcomes, nefarious as they are, were not intended, but are solely a “devil’s dividend”, a product of unintended consequences.
A more modern example is incorporated in the political ideology of fascism.
Clearly in opposition to “free trade” and “open market” ideology, fascism subjugated the individual citizen to the service of the state.
The following video is a Ub2b presentation of Hillsdale College.
The speaker, Michael Rectenwald, gave this speech on November 13, 2022, during a Hillsdale College CCA seminar on “Parallel Economies.”
The question Joe and I ask is this – are the negative punitive and dangerous restrictive effects of “corporate fascism” coincidental?
We think not, and quoting Steve Bannon, who said “there are no conspiracies, but there are also no coincidences”.
Joe asks what the value of “commen wealth” might be, when it is obviously not common good:

The above is a segment of the full presentation, which you can watch here.
From our perspective, a humble mud pecker, dirt person, salt of the earth type, there are Titans and there are minions.
When the Titans battle, what is the fate of minions?
What then, in the name of the Enlightenment, is a person to make of the needless loss of lives, trampled from existence, their humble and modest pursuits extinguished?
Is there a “greater cause” worthy of the loss of innocent lives?
That seems oxymoronic.
At the top of the corporate fascist hierarchy would be the brokers of war.
The munitions industries are running full tilt boogie building the instruments of death, destruction, horror, and misery.
Joe and I ask just what the fuck is going on in the Ukraine……
And what corporate fascist hell is being acted out in the name of “commen wealth”…..

 

Americana

Jeffry Epstein – lest we forget
Joe and I have no possible way to prove the following list is accurate or not –
This violates our sense of fair play: trust but verify.
We weren’t there, we don’t travel in this crowd, we know nothing and we’re happy.  We have zero to testify.  All we’ve got is our outrage and anger.
Why post this list?
So much data floods the many mediums of media carrying “news” every moment of every day –
Mr. Epstein is old news.
No one capable of investigating this atrocity is investigating this atrocity.
No one will be attending a federal penitentiary for an extended stay for crimes committed.  Justice for the innocent and abused will not be seen to happen.
Yet lives were ruined.
Who will remember these travesties?
Who will carry the standard, expose the guilty, prosecute them, and punish them to the extent of the law?
Time for a Robert Zimmerman philosophical query sung as rhetorical lament:

 

Super Bowl
Joe and I used to like the game.
As time progressed, we still liked the game, but grew interested in the advertisements.
More time went by.
The “Black “National” Anthem”???
Half time “entertainment” that sucks ass?
Crappy seats selling for thousands of dollars?
Blow a goat.
Joe is right when he says Big Business ruins everything.
We didn’t know when the big game was played.
We don’t know who the teams were, or who won.
What we know is this –

 

 

COVID – Lest We Forget

JBP and Dr. Jayanta Bhattacharya
This is an interesting and informative look back at the rise (and fall) of the COVID hysteria.
More indignation, less what to do, but a commitment to a common goal.
The identities of the guilty are named.
The reasons for their betrayal of We The People are surmised.
All in all, a good conversation that may or may not lead to less talk and more action.
What a system we live in.
You can know the bad guys but you can’t do a damn thing about it.
Correction.  You can know the bad guys but you can’t do a damn thing about it except talk talk talk.
A phrase from Tom Wait’s song “Heartattack and Vine” comes to mind – “Don’t you know there ain’t no devil, there’s just God when he’s drunk“.  Amen:

COVID Memes

 

Joe’s Garage

Destroyer to Yacht
The uber rich are a wonderful resource.
The very short video below shows the before and after of a navy frigate that does an ugly duckling metamorphic switcheroo and becomes a beautiful yacht.
The rich person or people or organization that paid for the transformation gave a large number of people employment.
Designers.  Fabricators.  Suppliers.  Skilled tradesmen.  And don’t forget the crew that keeps the yacht pristine and plying the waters of wherever.
Something you don’t see in Kalamalka Lake:

Small House
This couple decided to build a small house for their aging elders.
Joe reckons this is somewhere in Europe, perhaps eastern Europe.
Great technology.
Great skill sets.
Joe says this couldn’t be done here unless you did it on your own property off grid out of sight and mind of the bureaucrats, standards organizations, and busy bodies.
We can only dream of such freedom:

 

 

 

Continue reading Sunday Rant – 0923

PN:

Joe’s Comment – Well, the hard wait is over.  The treachery of February is about to be real!  In the coming week, February bares her winter fangs and takes the Okanagan back into deep Winter (capital “W”).
I’m not sure if it is a function of age, or a precipitate of a relentless early onset winter, or the current culture, but socializing in my life has declined.
Precipitously.
Don’t care…..
I’m also unsure if I’ve bottomed.  Or if I’m lonely.
I am sure that the angle fish cartoon is hilarious!
I’m also sure that winter has a way of weighing on my mind and altering perceptions, ability, efficiency, energy, production, and desire.
It ain’t easy living in the coldest country on Earth.
Or second coldest.
Whatever.
Good news this week –
My daughter Jeanine is featured in a promotional video from her employer BC Health Care Assistants.
She does a fantastic job!
What a photogenic beautiful vibrant woman you are, Jeanine!
Said without prejudice or favor:

Canadiana

Quick Dick McDick
He’s back!
QD’s chore at hand is stocking the deep freeze with Bambi.
Joe and I approve of every little bit(e):

And, as an additional treat, here’s a Quick Dick blast from the past.
Anybody remember the Turdeau government shaming itself over the Coastal GasLink Pipeline?  How about B.C. throwing an indigenous hissy?
Or was it simply concerned citizens legally protesting?
Once again, Quick Dick demonstrates that he has more moxie and more proxy than all of Ottawa.
A true ambassador for Canada, for Saskatchewan, and for responsible “agricultural technicians” everywhere.
Joe and I think we smell big money and the Americans at work, manipulating the Canadian energy sector.  Nothing new there.  The real question is how to bring Canadian energy products to a global, open market, freeing producers (and provinces) from the monopolistic strangle hold(s) currently hobbling development and prosperity.
After all, if abiotic oil is a fact, Jack, existing Alberta and Saskatchewan reserves will never be exhausted:

 

– Alberta becomes second Canadian province to reject national healthcare digital ID

 

Peter Zeihan Blowing Smoke
Joe thinks if hubris were testosterone, Mr. Zeihan would have gigantic balls that drag on the ground when he walked.
It is a good thing hubris is NOT testosterone.
(That Joe has such a way with words.)
The following video is mental masturbation about Canada from the fount of babble who calls himself a “Geopolitical Strategist”.
Both Joe and I are still dubious of the predictions and pronouncements of Mr. Zeihan, but there is a mysterious attraction we feel about the happy happy joy joy fortune cookie gibberish emulating from his smug little pie hole (maybe it’s the “man bun”, or the whispering, or the fact he’s from Colorado, or maybe he’s light in his loafers….. Joe’s neck hair stands up like a rottweiler’s hackles at the sound of his smug smarmy voice).
For what its worth, Mr. Zeihan has this to say about Canada, which, in his not so humble opinion, is not a real country.
The video is an excerpt from the Business Council of Alberta PODCAST: Episode #88: The Brief: Understanding the New Global Order: A Look at the Collapse of Globalization.
Damn!
Just when Joe and I want to lay the ugly stick on the guy, he says something we totally agree with, and understand:

 

Americana

Raquel Welch (R.I.P.)
Wasn’t it just yesterday when this beautiful woman started her career in the movie industry?
We’re remembering “One Million Years BC“.
You can imagine what feelings her scantily clad body invoked in a 17 year old man-child.
Joe and I are feeling very very old – she was 9 years older than us.
She aged well, but we will always remember her as young as in the following photo –
A quote from John Keats seems appropriate –
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty.
That is all ye know on earth,
And all ye need to know.”
If it ever were true, it was for you, Ms. Welch.

 

Nancy Mace
A Republican representative from North Carolina, Ms. Mace has a great sense of humor.
Joe likes the cut of her jib.  Belay that.  Joe likes her jib and every other aspect she cares to share, too.
Is it out of the question to have cheeky, bold, happy politicians who aren’t afraid to speak their mind?
From our ever so humble perspective, humor, honesty, and humility helps mitigate the inevitable political machinations that go sour.
Don’t forget transparency.
How fresh and how rare is an honest politician who admits they were wrong?
In the case of Ms. Mace, time will tell.
We wish her a meaningful and honorable political career:

How America Took Out the Nordstream Pipeline
This video from “Democracy Now” features internationally renown journalist Seymour Hersh (he exposed the My Lai massacre, and many other front page stories).
This is one of the speculations the world has been living with since September of 2022.
If this is true, as Mr. Hersh insists, Joe and I have lost what little respect we have for the current U.S. administration.
Indeed, our early childhood was during the Eisenhower presidency.  President Eisenhower is known for coining the expression “military industrial complex“.
Joe and I grieve for our lost innocence.
We used to admire and love the U.S., for very good reasons.
Their behavior since the Second World War has shamed their Republic, and its founding documents.
Ultimate power does seem to corrupt ultimately:

COVID – Least We Forget

Masking
Joe says another country heard from – we posted Ivor Cummins’ definitive analysis of masking a few rants ago.
The video below talks about data from two Cochrane Reviews, presented by Dr. Moran.
What the studies reveal is there is no measurable difference in transmission of aerosol-born viruses with any mask, up to and including N95.  What they don’t mention is the negative impact of wearing a mask for a long time.  Nor a difference between “surgical masks” and the touted N95 mask.
Joe says this information is current.  There is research 100 years old (after the Spanish Influenza pandemic) that comes to the same conclusion.
Joe and I have some experience wearing a mask.  We can tell you that prolonged wearing is egregious to our health.  Also, when you remove the mask, you see the “breathing trails” on your face, indicating the mask doesn’t seal properly.
We still see people around town, alone walking or driving, wearing a mask.
Jesus wept:

COVID Memes

 

Joe’s Garage

Detroit e/w 2 transmissions
Joe and I enjoyed our year of driving long haul.
Our “christening” was a week long ride-along, followed by 6 weeks without a return to home.  We wuz tossed in the deep end…..
Most of the days were long, but the weather was good, and California for sure!
Toward the end in the winter leaving Canada with hours and hours of snow and rain and wind and a cold bed at night we grew disenchanted.  An easily influenced dispatcher who often changed our route and a dick of a truck owner (although he did give us our chance to drive) completed the disgruntling and angering. We quit.
Our appreciation of truck drivers, trucking, and especially those doing long hauling is one of great respect and admiration.
Anything you consume or use, if you didn’t make it yourself or grow it in your yard, well, whatever it is spent some time on a truck.
One combination we haven’t driven is a Detroit with 2 transmissions.  “Twin stick” combinations are very old school.  The Detroit is a two stroke engine that sounds like it is revving very high, famously called a “screamin’ Jimmie”, and the 2 transmission set is two transmissions, one in front of the other.  The following video shows a young fellow driving such a combination in a 1948 Diamond T truck.  Notice he doesn’t use the clutch much – only for starting, and decelerating when he shifts both boxes at once.  The switch on the dash is the “Jake Brake”:

Temple Grandin
Ms. Grandin is a person who, in the early days of our public schooling, would be jeered at and called a retard or some such by her fellow students.
Her crime?
She is a visual thinker.  A class of sensory thinker.
She thinks in pictures, not words.
Her diagnosis is “autistic”.  She didn’t speak until she was 4 years old.
In this presentation she gives example after example of how visual/sensory thinkers from the world of animals and humans have more in common than you would think.
As important, she points out how the word (verbal) thinkers miss the cues sensual thinkers see and respond to, mildly or as “fight or flight”.
Here is a chart from the video that defines “specialist brain” peculiarities –
Joe and I believe that ALL HUMANS are so, until they are conditioned and trained to speak.
Ms. Grandin believes there are worthwhile careers and jobs that visual thinkers / autistic people can perform.  Our culture is not yet attuned to this reservoir of able people who just happen to think differently than the majority.
This is an important video that gives insight to the visual thinker’s world:

How To Make Pemmican
What ho!
On the dusty trail, with only jerked beef and pemmican for food.
2 Guys & a Cooler gives a standard recipe for making this Native American survival food.
The closest conventional food might be what the military has: MRE (Meal, Ready to Eat), although in the comments below the video, it was compared to a bouillon type cube that you add to water and compliment with whatever you can find in the immediate environment (i.e., greens, spices, etc.).
I.e., not a snack bar (although you can eat it that way) but a nutritious concentrate that doesn’t easily spoil.
Joe and I will try this recipe.
We also enjoyed the comments very much.  Lots of old timers talking about how their parents and grand parents prepared pemmican in their youth from ingredients found where they lived:

Continue reading Sunday Rant – 0823

PN:

Joe’s Comment – In this Sunday Rant, there is a continuation of the on-going COVID aftermath.  It will be part of this rant until all the guilty are judged and punished.  Which might be a while.  Get used to it.
February has been mild so far, and that suits me fine, although I would be tickled if it were 80° F every single day.  Or hotter.
I think I may have been born about 49° latitude too far north.
Glossing over the above pictures / memes as a summary of the week, I’ll recap.
Nature is not your friend.  Nature is not your Mother.  Nature is the sum total of all living things vying for the resources they need to survive and procreate.
There is always competition for those resources.
Nature doesn’t give two figs if you live or die or find another way.
When I was a young man, I thought the best adventure would be to be dropped off in Spring somewhere in a forest with a select collection of tools, food, and resources.  The challenge would be to make it through the next Winter living off the land.
It was a masturbatory fantasy.
As a young man, I didn’t have anywhere near the skill set I have as a soon to be 74 year old man.
Alas!
As an almost 74 year old man, I’ve got moxie, but my body ain’t what she used to be (old gray mare reference).
I think the above graphic is accurate for most folks, no matter what age.
Which leads to the middle statement – it stands true.
I find most daily interactions with my fellow citizens less than ecstatic, less than fulfilling.  The balancing act is to optimize your time in order to pursue your own path, not that of others.  Like taxes, some time is lost to maintaining a cultural presence, i.e., earn your daily keep.
Finally, my damn knees are killing me.
Today especially.
I’d best talk to Dr. Shoal about some shoe inserts.
My career as a zombie would be pathetic – I can’t even do the old Chinaman shuffle.

Canadiana

– Full steam ahead: New major oil sands project to proceed as producers build for the future

Americana

Who will be the Republican candidate for President in 2024?
How about Mike Pompeo?
Joe and I don’t think Trump would be able to do what he did, although to continue his administrations activities would be a good thing.
We also don’t think Ron DeSantis is ready yet.
Mike Pompeo is a powerful option.
Joe and I like the work he did for Trump.
We like his strong stance on foreign affairs.
We like his hard line on immigration, the drug trade, and justice for traitors.
John Stossel does an excellent job of interviewing Mr. Pomeo.
A terrific way to while away an hour – fast paced and highly interesting:

Peter Zeihan
Mr. Zeihan doing his hustle in Shreveport Louisiana a few days ago.
Joe and I can’t get over this dude’s hubris.
What we hear is a giantenormous ego mentally masturbating in public.
That said, the details and data he presents stimulates our interest.
Could it be that obvious that Joe and I can’t see it at all?
Or is it entertainment, plain and simple?
Our jury is out.
We will continue to listen over time and see if ANY of his predictions bear fruit, i.e., is true.
If he is partially accurate, good times for North America and North Americans.
That includes the Beaners, too:

 

COVID Fallout

Robert Malone
Joe and I are a fan of Dr. Robert Malone.
Not so much a fan of Dave Rubin.
This interview is a walk through the time of COVID response and hysteria from the perspective of the inventor of the mRNA gene therapy technology.
Clear evidence that the government and medical community plus the Big Pharma companies were in cahoots, were misleading and misinforming the public, were suppressing the good doctors, sometimes with legal or professional punitive measures, and were totally involved dollar wise with hoodwinking We The People.
If you have a resentment burning in your mind for the perpetrators of the absolute sham of the last three years, you might spend the time watching:

Dr. Meryl Nass
This good doctor has lost her license to practice medicine because she dares to question what has happened in the three year timeline of the COVID hysteria / CF.
Thanks to Myrna F. for the link.
Joe and I don’t know the history, but Ms. Nass tells a compelling story:

Joe’s Garage

Elon Musk – Project Highland
Some weeks ago, in Sunday Rant – 5122, Joe and I remarked that Mr. Musk’s accomplishments reminded us over and over of the achievements of Henry Ford.
The scope of what Mr. Ford was able to do, despite monumental resistance and opposition by competitors, was orders of magnitude beyond his detractors ken.
Joe and I have our opinion on why that was so, which we may share later.
It seems that we weren’t alone.
Other folks noticed a pattern and made their thoughts public.
In the following video, the author speculates somewhat to undergird the parallels in development of Henry Ford’s manufacturing machinations:

Nimbus
A motorcycle marque Joe and I had never heard of until Monday this week.
Very unique.
4 cylinder in-line exposed valve single overhead cam engine with a detached transmission and shaft drive.  The frame is made of flat bar steel.  It has a hard tail.  It was the first motorcycle to employ telescopic front forks.  The control actuators (throttle, lights, etc.) are one of a kind in operation.  A sweet Dutch treat.
Joe says he would drive one.
Joe can’t afford a Nimbus.  See for yourself:

Vegan?
A lovely presentation by Dr. Zoë Harcombe at the LowCarbDownUnder conference in October of 2022.
She has built some important graphs featured in her presentation.
This talk covers all aspects of nutrition, a bit of history, and some of the politics involved in misleading the people of the world about nutrition.
Dr. Harcombe is the newest nutritional hero for Joe and I:

Dr. Zoë Harcombe 
Ivor Cummins, the intrepid statistician, endorses the following Dr. Harcombe presentation to the UK Parliament in 2019.
This is an early analysis by Dr. Harcombe designed to appeal to the politicians she was addressing.
More evidence that the truth is out there, is being spoken, but those who could change the equation either refuse or decline to make the truth known.
Joe and I liked this short but very meaningful presentation:

One more of Dr. Zoe Harcombe.  Same info, slightly changed presentation.  The timing is between the first and second video (one year ago).
Joe and I can’t get enough.  We had to watch three because she talks so fast we only caught every third word:

American Road Trip
Joe and I saw many of the vehicles that we grew up with in this trip through the ’50s and ’60s.  The compiler was a GM fan, we think.
Lots of “in situ” photos with the folks that drove or owned the vehicles.
Joe and I like seeing the people, not just the machines.
We prefer portrait photos to landscapes.
History is more meaningful now that we are close to the end of our own:

Continue reading Sunday Rant – 0723