Causes by John Smith

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

Causes by John Smith

As inspired (or triggered, anyway) by Sarah’s post “Everywhere”…

Sarah said: “Causes leading up to…” [electric boogaloo II, the releasing of the Kraken.] [Leading up to Romania – SAH]

Yes, yes indeed. Causes.

Item: went out to do some business today, stopped for sushi, went to Home Depot to get a lawn chair.

At the business, I had to call the company and have the person I was seeing come out into the parking lot to get me. Then I was escorted to a boardroom through empty halls, and seated across from the gentleman I went to see, separated by a large sheet of Lexan thick enough to stop a bullet. Masks mandatory, of course. This is Ontario, you know.

Left there, went to Fortinos supermarket to get sushi. I waltzed into the store, chose my meal, paid for it and left, as normal. Masks, of course.

Went to Home Depot. It was one of the only stores open in a sea of Big Boxes with empty parking lots. Only the outdoor section was open, the rest of the store was closed off with crime-scene tape. No lawn furniture in the outdoor plant section, of course, so wasted trip.

This shit has been going on since March 2020. Even the dumbest hick in the world can see that if I can shop freely at Fortino’s and Costco, keeping Home Depot mostly closed is lunacy. Closing other “non-essential” stores is double lunacy. Even the most ridiculous Karen out there can see that a sheet of Lexan in the middle of a boardroom table will do exactly nothing to stop an airborne virus.

Item: vaccines. Canada doesn’t have any. We are not making them here, and there are no plans to make them here. Really. Meanwhile, you can’t turn on a TV or a radio (or drive down the road, there’s electronic signs) without having a GET VACCINATED!!!!!!!11!!!! message screamed at you.

Item: immigration. While screaming that people are ignoring the lockdown rules and blaming the public for the continued spread of WuFlu, and braying that Double Mutant Indian WuFlu is a thing… the government is letting flights from India, S. Africa, Europe and etc. land in Canada with no testing of passengers, no quarantine, no nothing. But a Canadian flying back from Florida? QUARANTINE!!!! The dumbest hick in the world can see that’s insane.

Item: doctor friends in Florida say the WuFlu is not much of a thing there. Florida is God’s Waiting Room, remember? All the old geezers in North America go to Florida.

Item: housing prices. Most expensive in North America, right here in Canada. Higher than Silicon Valley. Higher than London England. The federal minister in charge of the housing portfolio admitted, on TV, that Canada will keep seeing these highest ever prices, because they want to encourage foreign buyers to buy shit in Canada. So rich guys from Germany and Arabia and China load up on Canadian real estate while Canadians are priced right out of the market.

Item: fuel costs are going up-up-up here in the Demented Dominion. I see ever-increasing numbers of rural houses with impressive wood piles out here in Hooterville. Mine’s not impressive, but I have one. What do you think it means for a society like ours when people start going back to burning wood for heat? Are those guys feeling optimistic about the future?

Item: In the Toronto Sun today, this little thing here.

Bill C-10, currently before the House of Commons, would give the government the power to regulate any content you generate and post online. Your video ranting on Twitter, dancing on TikTok, or pontificating on Facebook would be treated as a radio or television broadcaster.

 Yes, the Trudeau government’s answer to all of the above is to shut down the ability to comment on the Internet.

Fix the vaccine situation? No. Make The Phantom shut up about it? Yes. That’s what they’re going to do.
I suspect that this bill is directed at Rebel News, which has been exposing and embarrassing Trudeau and company for quite some time now. They managed to get Sun TV kicked off the airwaves, but it turned into Rebel on the internet and the CRTC can’t get them there. But they will come for The Phantom Soapbox soon enough.

Item: Have you guys looked at the Nebula and Hugo nominees? NK Jemisin’s entry basically calls for the elimination of Whiteness (that’s being generous, she may really be after the elimination of Whites.) There’s a few more equally bent in the nominations. Meanwhile they’re ripping down billboards advertising Harry Potter because JK Rowling mentioned that women are women and men aren’t.

Sarah said: “And the problem is because they have captured the centers of information that they, themselves listen to and believe, they are completely unaware that the rest of us are looking at reality and going “you’re out of your minds.””

I’ve been looking at gun control since Kim Campbell’s bill C-17 in 1991 and saying that they’re out of their minds ever since I started. It is the finest in head/ass insanity, propped up by lazy assholes lying with charts and calling it “science.” I’ve caught them at it so many times I don’t even try any more, there’s no point. You can’t have a scientific discussion with a deliberate liar.

I’m late to the party. Barry Goldwater was screaming about this shit in 1964.(Side note, nobody ever said anything about it in Canada until lately. The control of the media here is 100%.)

But here we are, 2021. Now Joe Average Canadian, the biggest, thickest hick in the world, finally sees what Goldwater was screaming in 1964 and what The Phantom has been saying since 1991. The government acts always and only for the convenience and prosperity of… the government. Joe Average Canadian finally understands that he is a SUCKER and has been played his whole f-ing life by a bunch of scammers. Played like a Stradivarius.

Joe Average Canadian is pissed.

But he’s not going to do shit. He’s going to sit there, angry, and do nothing. Until he gets hungry, and it is cold out, and there’s no fuel for his furnace, and there’s no food at the store. Then he will finally get off his huge pampered ass and go complain.

Oh and by the way. In case anyone didn’t know, or forgot, and for all you -idiot- Lefties out there who lurk here at Sarah’s: Michael Foucault was a PEDO and child rapist. A prolific one. No, you don’t get a link, Lefties. Look it up.

362 thoughts on “Causes by John Smith”

  2. Supposedly the manager of this place has said that unless 80% of the employees get the vax, it will be masks and other (most proven to be not needed by even the CDC) covidiousy in perpetuity.
    They did stop the daily Temp taking as the last several cases they had showed up for work feeling fine and had no temp, then felt off enough to go home and later tested positive. Granted this was when it was still the idiotic testing that almost guaranteed a positive, so some may have been the flu, but none has been seriously ill. Did a drop on the other side of town today and the whole building was maskless. Granted most of them have had it but the rules don’t take that into account.
    Tired of the Kabuki.

      1. The French are getting really tired of it, too:

        There have been flashmobs singing this song in multiple places over the past few months. Part of it is the way that lockdowns and other measures have been imposed/removed/re-imposed. Part of it is it is also seen as an attack on French culture, which Just Isn’t Done.

          2. Bit of irony that the protests are in the 10eme. Belleville, rue Stalingrad, and all that. they’re always rebelling against something up there, usually against sense but I suppose they were bound to get it right eventually. Place is a dump, I lived there for about a year.

              1. You know, if you put a kind of “dum diddly um diddly um” Western beat or Spanish bullfighting song beat behind the song, it gets really fun sounding.

              1. Did you see the letter that 1000 ex-military officers and vets signed off on? Who had France as their winner of the “and then the veterans had enough” bet slip?

                1. I have not….that said, having been in teh Navy, my view of “vet” is pretty low…..

                  *hugely interested*

                  1. The full text of the statement can be found in this Powerline piece:

                    https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2021/04/will-france-save-western-civilization.php

                    Some of the signing officers are still active military and the statement includes an open threat of the military stepping in and taking an active role.

                    Some of the statements:
                    “As servants of the Nation, who have always been ready to pay the ultimate price for our service, we cannot remain passive spectators of such actions.”,;and

                    “if nothing is done, heedlessness will continue to spread its poison throughout society, inexorably. In the end, there will be an explosion, and [b] our comrades in active military service will be forced to step in and undertake the perilous mission of protecting our civilizational values and the lives of our fellow citizens [/b].”

          2. Because the last time Frogs did that it ended in the guillotine, decades of war, and Beef Wellington?
            ~

            1. And it’s not just in France. I’m finding videos from Spain, Switzerland, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany…

              (EU delenda est.)

          4. I am, too, and I’m not sure why. Same thing happened when I watched people sing the Les Miserables song “Do you hear the people sing…”

          5. Yesterday I had lunch at the local buffet (salad bar, hurray!). When I left, I glanced at their message board and, as usual, it said, “Fried chicken every day.”
            For reasons known only to God, I choked up and cried off and on for the rest of the day.
            Stress. And the video gets to me, too. The French are strange, and yet….
            (My late, and loved, mother-in-law was French. She was not strange).

            2. The Maryland General Assembly made Lafayette and his male heirs “natural-born Maryland citizens” in 1784, which also made them de jure natural-born American citizens under the Articles of Confederation, but the Feds repudiated that in 1955 when one of his descendants demanded his American passport.

          7. Oh good, not just me.

            Mind you, I actually kind of like the French (yes, I know that makes me weird. I’m cool with that.).

        4. Germans and British too & orange vests in Italy. Riots in the Netherlands. Hard to find it in the newspapers of course and nothing in the US papers as usual. TV? Snort.

          Even with Boris’s bungling, it looks as though labour is losing big in the first by-election — in Hartlepool. That was among the safest of safe seats till it started to be broken by UKIP and the conservatives look to be taking it in a walk. Local elections in the midlands are similar.

          I suspect there will be a great deal of populism breaking out, here and abroad and judging by my rich friends and family it will come as a complete and utter surprise.

        5. Interesting that in the Bologna, Italy version, not only is hardly anyone wearing masks, hardly anyone even has a mask. In Italy.

          1. On reflection, what’s kind of amazing is that the European cities’ plazas are full of people — not everyone there is part of the flash mob. Contrast to our nearly deserted downtowns, abandoned to the homeless, the anarchists, and the police.

              1. Here’s Hollywood Florida – not crowded by any means, but not empty:

              2. Hawaii cams are still pretty empty, but you can’t drive there, and they were right up there among the most draconian lockdowns and they just barely reopened with lots of pre-tes t/ paperspliss to get there.

                Beaches in Georgia and North Carolina are empty.

                Downtown Salt Lake City looks pretty darned empty, not even much traffic.

                Hm, I am becoming converted to balzacq’s point of view…

            2. What we think about how Europe operates and how Europe operates is not the same thing. Catholic Europe is ungovernable, really always has been that’s why they’ve always had gendarmes since the people will only obey while you hold a gun to them.

              I think the reason the UK left the EU is that the dumb brits actually enforced that nonsense. the French, Italians, Spanish mostly ignored it or cheated and the Germans only obeyed it since the regulations were written for their benefit. When they were not, they ignored them or cheated too.

              1. I have a cousin in France. She was totally OK with being locked in their apartment for weeks – she was at first, anyway. I don’t know if that’s changed. (I haven’t gotten around to loading FB on my new tablet).

        6. That was great! It reminds me of the scene in Casablanca where they start singing La Marseillaise. It’s better though because this is real.

  3. “What do you think it means for a society like ours when people start going back to burning wood for heat? Are those guys feeling optimistic about the future?”

    Burning wood for heat? Well, seeing as Canada is likely the nation most likely to benefit from Global Warming (TM) I can understand trying to hurry it up.

    Might want to invest in wooden effigies of your political leaders – not only would it be an enjoyable pick-me-up to toss another Trudeau on the fire, there’s the fact that a wooden effigy of Justin the Bollocks would probably be smarter than the original.
    ~

    1. It’s especially frustrating south of the border, because Canada’s defacto lumber embargo is a very large part of what’s driven the price of lumber up 800%.

      And they’ve so f’ed their economy that now they’re burning their primary export.

      I wonder if this is how the bronze age collapsed?

      1. Domestic lumber is not replacing it. Weyerhauser is still shipping everything they can to Japan or China. Even what burned in the Cascades this last fall. As long as just burned bark, maybe wood scorched a little, they’ll take it. A LOT of Weyerhauser timberland burned in the Holiday Fire. Anything too damaged to ship is going to local mills, which are ramped up too. Gee, who’d of thought that non-individual production lumber mills took more than a few weeks or more than a year to ramp up and build? All the defunct ones have been gutted, most torn down.

        Too soon to know what the USFS is going to do with their burned timberlands, too soon for environmental impact statements. Nothing happened to the timber burned in the fire that swept around Big Lake and Shuttle Lake up on the Hwy 126 pass in 2003. You could see the skeletons of the dead trees for years, as it naturally brushed up, and the skeletons came down over time. But the areas surrounding the pass and lakes, north and south, were primarily (not 100%) designated wilderness. We’ll likely be traveling Hwy 126 in less than two weeks.

        1. It does bother me just how much material stuff is being sucked up by China right now. Apparently a lot of the shops that got idled because of the shut down are being sold to Chinese breakers for scrap steel prices, and broken down to build China’s railways.

          1. Can’t speak to the scraping of shops. But timber going to China (nor Japan) is not new. Hubby and I both worked the Weyerhauser log export yard and dock from ’79 until Weyerhauser went back to company log scalers, in ’81. International Paper. The one reason we didn’t have a ***conflict with hubby working for a 3rd party log scaling outfit, and me working for the timber division of International Paper was because IP exported, so no government timber being scaled. By then I was out of the timber aspect, but PTB wouldn’t have seen it that way, had it come up. (*BLM, but BLM doesn’t sell on the scale, they **sold units on BLM timber cruise. Plus IP only got timber from road construction done by IP for IP unit access. Not part of my job, so don’t know details of how it worked.)

            * The land management one. JIC
            ** Sold. Because government units are not selling, or few. Haven’t for decades.
            *** Ironically there was technically more of a perceived conflict, or should have been, if anyone had put it together, when Lovelace Farms cleared for farmland, and pastures, and happened to be trucked to the nearest log yard the summer hubby was assigned to that local yard (not IP or Weyco). Not very many loads, but still. Owned by my Uncle and Cousin. Laughable if anyone knows my husband. But still would have been the perception of conflict.

    3. Might want to invest in wooden effigies of your political leaders – not only would it be an enjoyable pick-me-up to toss another Trudeau on the fire, there’s the fact that a wooden effigy of Justin the Bollocks would probably be smarter than the original.

      Surely there most be a way to turn those effigies into voodoo dolls…..

        1. We don’t know that it doesn’t work, we merely know we haven’t discovered a reliable means of activating it.

          Although I gather there are a number of Wiccans who would respond, “Whattya mean “WE” wallaby?”
          ~

          1. Well, some of them allegedly tried to help Trump.
            However, even though society has loosened up a bit, I strongly suspect anyone openly stating they’re a witch is more likely to be a scammer. Real Wiccans keep their heads down.

  4. From the Breitbart article on Foucault’s… predilections:
    ===
    Despite Foucault’s self-professed Marxist leanings, Sorman said that his behaviour in real life was indicative of French elitism, noting that Foucalt “believed there were two morals, one for the elite, which was immoral, and one for the people, which should be restrictive.”

    “He thought his arguments gave him permission to do whatever he wanted.”
    ===

    That’s it in a nutshell. The Left argues for whatever will let them do as they wish, and that will also restrict the rest of us.

    Predilection, from a medical dictionary: “An established preference; a site of predilection would be the most likely site occurrance, as for the manifestations of a disease, condition, or parasite.”

    1. “Despite Foucault’s self-professed Marxist leanings …”

      Despite? DESPITE???? I do not think that word means what they think it means. Marxism is little BUT elitism, no matter what lubricant they employ to facilitate their buggering of the general public. Foucalt merely did physically what Marxism does philosophically.
      ~

      1. Everybody knew about Foucault, it was common gossip. I forget what name they called him in Le Canard Enchaine, but Foucault’s predilections were known by tout Paris — everybody who was anybody. Hell, I knew and i’m nobody.

        Same thing with Epstein, who did not kill himself, everything intellectuals, as opposed to scholars and artists, write is justification for their doing whatever perverted BS they might be up to at that moment.

    2. The Left loves to play “I win, you lose” in every area. We’re not allowed to dissent because we’re not intelligent, educated, white, insert insult of choice here to invalidate someone’s opinion without any debate required.

      Our fine Government has also fully entered the propaganda business. The CISA has decided to publish graphic novels telling us how we shouldn’t doubt traditional media and how we can combat ‘misinformation’.
      You can either follow the link https://www.cisa.gov/resilience-series-graphic-novels or do a search for “CISA graphic novels”. There are now 2, one was released last year and details. . .election hacking.

      I saw an article about them and decided to check them out, if you require blood pressure medication, I’d advise taking it prior to reading.

        1. Why not? The modern print media are Der Sturmer, Das Reich, and Volkischer Beobachter in all but their names…

      2. Trust traditional media who cannot tell the difference between a “mostly peaceful protest” and an “insurrection”? I don’t think so.
        ~

        1. Maybe they can tell the difference, they just got them backward?

          I call it ‘The unguided walking tour of the Capitol Building’. That is OUR house. Congresscritters are just the help.

          1. The police/security people let them in and escorted them through the building.

            And they were *invited* by the incumbent President of the United States.

  5. Did you see that thing about the Irish guy whose children got taken away at 3 am because he filmed the gardai kicking people out of mass? 😦

    1. Yeah, that’s a beauty right there. This is the shit that leads to a shootin’ war in the USA… but not in Ireland. Because the Irish, like Canadians and Brits, love them some gun control. They can’t do jack about it.

      1. Depending on the particular Irish, they have a history of exercising other options. Boomenstuff is fun, after all.

    2. I hadn’t, thank you for letting me know. This is the sort of thing which haunts my dreams. >.<;

  6. My savage teenage daughter’s sailing a Hunter 41 up here to Alaska from Seattle. Around 800 miles of the trip’s in Canadian waters. I reminded her make sure they’ve a quarantine flag.

    1. They should also have a “Lima” flag, quarterly black and yellow.
      This means “stay away” or “stop”, while the Q (yellow) flag means “I am not diseased and want an inspection for entry “.
      Seems backwards, but there it is.
      John in Indy

      1. I read the meaning of the Q flag a wee bit different, means have not been inspected and can’t hit port until such rather than I want inspection. {Reference; “Q (Quebec) flag is square in shape and pure yellow. Continuing to fly either of these signals indicates a vessel is yet to receive clearance (and is thus effectively in quarantine).” source; https://www.maritimeprofessional.com/blogs/post/quarantine-flag-13441 }

        Having gone over Canada’s China Bad Cold rules it does appear they want a Q flag flown, in some cases, if those aboard aren’t vaccinated or tested. A least that’s what I read a few days back but must allow the rules can change hourly

  7. After all the mask/vaccine blackmail heading up toward the wedding, everybody went maskless at the wedding, reception, drinking, banquet, live band, etc. Also there was passing out band sombreros, wearing them, and giving them back to the band.

    However, there was some kind of cold war between relatives going on that I didn’t even notice, possibly vaccine related.

    So. Dumb.

    Then had to go back to work and wear a mask.

    Argh.

    1. Also, please do not make a ten minute speech (at your sister’s wedding ceremony, not the reception) about what her dog could teach her about marriage.

      Definitely do not refer to the dog as a “little bundle of joy.” Even the deaf people were looking around for Signs of Baby.

      1. OK, that’s a new one on me: Relative speeches at the ceremony?

        What’s next?

        Dr. Raymond Stantz: What he means is Old Testament, Mr. Mayor, real wrath-of-God type stuff. Fire and brimstone coming down from the sky! Rivers and seas boiling!
        Dr. Egon Spengler: Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes…
        Winston Zeddmore: The dead rising from the grave!
        Dr. Peter Venkman: Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together – MASS HYSTERIA!

        1. The brother of the bride is allegedly some kind of minister. I do not know if he is a Real Protestant Minister, or a Guy Who Sent in the Form So He Could Marry People in Kentucky. Since I never heard anything previously about him being a minister, I am assuming the latter. His theology in the speech/sermon didn’t match up with any denomination I knew about, and it did sound like All My Friends Who Got Minister Licenses in the Mail So They Could Be the Minister For Friends’ Weddings.

          Also, my younger male cousin was the groom. He likes making people do fun things. And usually, they really are fun things, but somehow people always do what he decides will be done, even if they are sometimes more stupid and less fun than he might initially realize. And not to say anything bad about his friends, because they are okay folks, but his friends don’t give him nearly the pushback that his ornery relatives do. It’s like Easy Mode.

          Shrug. It is possible that there were in fact good reasons behind everything that happened, both the successful and unsuccessful things. But it wasn’t my wedding to have or to run, so I’m not really worried about it, per se. They got married, they’re likely to stay married, and they are adults who’ve been living their own lives and holding down jobs for years now. And the reception was indeed fun for all.

          But… yeah, traditions are just easier for the ceremony parts. Honestly. Easier on the nerves, too.

          1. Anyhoo, there were nine bridesmaids and nine groomsmen in the bridal party, all of them close personal friends of both the groom and bride (yes, he’s the extreme social end of the family curve) and enough drink was taken before the ceremony that everyone in the bridal party was in a state of merry (but nobody got noticeably drunk). Yes, this marriage took place in a hotel function area, and so did all the other wedding events. So… yeah, if that’s what you want to do, that’s where you want to do it.

            He’s a very practical person, which is part of what makes him a little scary. You know his weird plans will work and be completed.

            I really wish they’d done more of an actual wedding with feeling/faith, but people have to live out their own lives.

    2. *hugs*

      …on the upside, you notice the congregation on EWTN the last two weeks?

      Two weeks ago, the folks who looked like relatives of the world-on-fire asian preacher were unmasked, and a couple others– this week, everybody but the ladies in prayer shawls were unmasked, and half the singers!

      1. We’re still masked, but we can sing at Mass. In fact, my mother — next diocese over — reports that the Sunday obligation will cease to be dispensed on Pentecost.

    3. “… there was some kind of cold war between relatives going on that I didn’t even notice, possibly vaccine related.”

      More likely the vaccine issue was merely a focal point for underlying issues. As the old saying goes, when a family fights over money the real issue is not money.

      OTOH, weddings with cold wars between relations are these days less uncommon than weddings with pregnant brides.
      ~

      1. OTOH, weddings with cold wars between relations are these days less uncommon than weddings with pregnant brides.

        You phrase that in a way that would seem to suggest the possibility of a wedding where none of the relatives are in a cold war.

        Oh! How silly of me! If they are openly fighting it isn’t a cold war.

        1. I was gonna say that none of the relatives at my wedding were in a cold war, and then I remembered 1) the multiple friends we had on Dad Watch and 2) the groomsmen who surreptitiously checked to see if he was packing. So really, more of a Christmas Truce at best.

  9. They’re also locking up preachers for preaching (in churches and outside) in Canada.

    Also, if Canada is for sale, how much for all of it—lock, stock, and beavers? Asking for a rich uncle.

    1. Make sure you get a VERY low price on the Eastern Provinces. PEI only survives due to Anne of Green Gables tourism, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick are pretty depressed, as is Newfoundland. And Quebec is full of cranky Francophones (but I repeat myself).

        1. We visited there a few years ago. I liked Nova Scotia, New Brunswick was OK, and PEI would have been a complete waste of time it it hadn’t been for the red beaches. Well, and the potato museum was interesting.

    2. I noticed they’d made another attempt to serve paper on Artur Pawlowski, the Polish priest who’d driven them from his temple once already.

      It does not appear to have gone any better the second time.

      However, noting headlines:

      Daily Wire: Calgary Court Issues Warrant Permitting Police ‘To Do Anything Necessary’ To Enter Pastor’s Church, Arrest Him
      The Polish pastor who made international headlines for kicking provincial officials from his church in Alberta, Canada, is facing potential arrest after a Calgary court issued a warrant against him.

      Court of Queen’s Bench Justice David Gates authorized police and health officials “to use such reasonable force as they deem appropriate to gain access” to the building of Pastor Artur Pawlowski’s The Fortress (Cave) of Adullam church in Calgary, according to a copy of the court order obtained by Rebel News.

      The warrant, which was issued April 23 but not seen by Pawlowski’s lawyer until this week, also forbids Pawlowski or anyone else from interfering with officials attempting to enter his church and, if he resists, permits law enforcement “to do anything necessary” to arrest him, imprison him, and drag him before a judge.

      Town Hall: Calgary Court Issues Warrant Of Arrest For Pastor Who Drove Police Away From Church Service Twice
      You likely remember Art Pawlowski, the pastor of the Cave of Adullam in Calgary, Alberta. Police showed up to shut down his service during Holy Week in the days leading up to Easter weekend earlier this month. Pastor Pawlowski gained fame after he sent the officers on their way with some choice language, ordering them to come back with a warrant if they dared show up again. Well, they have their warrant, and it informs police to be ready to arrest the pastor using “anything necessary,” according to Rebel News.

      Christianity Daily: Calgary Court Issues Warrant Of Arrest For Pastor Who Drove Police Away From Church Service Twice
      A pastor in Alberta, Canada, Reverend Artur Pawlowski, gained national and international attention for throwing provincial officials out of his parish. Now, the authorities want to see him on the warrant list.

      According to Dailywire (DW), a copy of the court order acquired by Rebel News authorizes police and health officials to “to use such reasonable force as they deem appropriate” to gain entry to Pastor Artur Pawlowski’s The Fortress (Cave) of Adullam church in Calgary.

      In addition, the warrant released on April 23 – and which was not sent to his counsel until this week -states that if he interferes with the police, he would be arrested and brought before a court and treated as a prisoner. The Alberta Health Services (AHS) was identified as the filing team.
      ~

      1. It would seem that in some polities arguing there is an authority greater than Caesar is becoming a crime.

        Rephrase:
        It would seem that in some polities arguing there is an authority greater than Caesar is not yet a crime.
        ~

        1. Everything inside the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.

        1. Any more, a warrant is just a thin veneer of “because we can” legality over unConstitutional or fraudulent actions.

          Indictments work the same way, now.

    3. Sam perchance? I wouldn’t mind having them as part of the US. New Frontier and all. We’d have to expand the Armed forces.

    4. Don’t want all of it. Just Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Even there I’d leave the northern sections to the ‘Native’ Canadians and the polar bears. Maybe we can trade for Michigan and Minnesota.

      1. Hang on there. Do NOT confuse Minnesota with Minneapolis. Though, I am about ready to say that where I am should be more considered North Iowa…

        2. ….what freaks me out is that Minneapolis’ Somali population is being given freedom to be the culture that CAUSED the hell-hole they crawled out of.

            1. I’ve lost my temper more than once when folks talk about “black culture” for this crud.

              No, no and NO, you are the F not blaming American anything for that crud.

              That is raw hellhole they were pulled out of junk.

              That’s why “Member of our Culture that shot innocent blonde lady must be released because of police violence” is a thing. Because it’s tribal junk.

              1. Rrrrrrgh. *Nod* The whole point of rule of law is quit it with the blood-feuds already. And that includes “looks different from me therefore anything I do to them is fine”.

                That progressives keep trying to get that reinstalled in the culture makes me want to dump them all into the heart of Africa, or the Rub’ al Khali, and let them see how they like dealing with “tribal” good and hard.

                1. Are there tribes in the empty quarter? I was thinking select areas of Afghanistan or Pakistan, eg., would be more instructive.

                  1. And Scotland proved you don’t want blood feuds because the English will invade when you’re distracted. Why did it take the Hatfields and McCoys another couple of centuries to get the message? Stubbornness would be my guess.

                    1. That and reinforcement from the local Cherokee blood feuds. You should read accounts of some of the first tribal cops trying to get that shut down. At least one had to resort to counter-curses due to everybody hating him for stopping the cycle.

                    2. Why did it take the Hatfields and McCoys another couple of centuries to get the message? Stubbornness would be my guess.

                      Mostly because the local magistrate wanted to feather his cap.

              2. They’re just following lead of capital police. Victims cannot be held responsible for attacking their oppressor

          2. That’s why the U.S. needs to limit annual immigration to 1 to 1.3 million people. That’s the maximum number of people the country can take in and acculturate without developing major non-assimilation problems. That assumes spreading them around the country as evenly as possible, and not cramming them into ghettos or reservations where they feed off each other, and refuse to drop their native cultures.

            2. You forgot the negative sign in front of your numbers. Since we have 20 to 30 million nonlegal residents the number should be -1.3 million per year.

              Remember immigration is invasion.

              1. Remember immigration is invasion.

                You just proved that invasions are a good thing that should be welcomed in limited quantities.

                Good Job!

                    1. I was talking about millions earlier in my post.

                      Maybe you could follow the context of the conversation like our wonderfully astute hostess and not trying to count coup with gotchas?

              2. I was speaking of legal immigration; since our government has proven to be incapable of controlling it under the Democrats. (Funny how Trump managed to significantly cut those numbers, and without redefining how they were counted either.)

        3. I’m sure that Iowa will welcome a Minotaur as part of their newly acquired northern section. Boundary adjustments are possible. In my neck of the woods I’m expecting West Virginia to get significantly larger.

          1. People around here are considering transferring the saner regions of Oregon, WA, and CA to Idaho. Kate’s sure making that attractive.

            1. Looks like Kate is starting to back down. Between the lawsuits and what Baker did, she’s reset the shutdown counties to “high” setting as of immediately.
              —
              “Keep Oregon Green. Get rid of Brown.”

              1. Yay!

                I thought she might come down if presented with reason and a clue-by-four. Nah, I figured she’d need a sight of a waiting lamppost.

              2. Oh. If NW Observer has it right, the jailer lets us back to high as of Friday. Can’t be too responsive, now.

                And now OR-OSHA is making masking requirements permenant until they say it’s OK. Arggh.

                2. Oh. If NW Observer has it right, the jailer lets us back to high as of Friday. Can’t be too responsive, now.

                  –
                  Yes. Friday. Originally reported “immediately”, but officially hit as of Friday. In time for Sunday Mother’s Day. There is that, anyway.
                  –

                  And now OR-OSHA is making masking requirements permenant until they say it’s OK. Arggh.

                  –
                  Yes. OR-OSHA did. But that has been in the works for awhile. Brown tried to get it through the legislative process. Don’t know if that is in the works still or failed. Suspect the former.

                  Technically the OSHA ruling applies to businesses and their employees, not customers of businesses. Not that won’t stop OSHA from fining businesses for not enforcing the mandate on customers, when caught. OSHA mandate is product and employee safety …
                  –

                  There is a FB group “Unmask Oregon”. Lots of people doing everything they can to start a “resistance”….

                  –
                  Yep. I’m a member of the group. Haven’t posted or commented anything, yet.
                  –

                  1. The OHA guidance/orders for ordinary mortals was refreshed 4/29. Forehead shields allowed, but strongly discouraged (shove it! OTOH, both the ordinary medical clinic and my dentist’s office accept it). Jaw based spit shields are supposed to be forbidden. I tried one, but it was hitting my nose and causing the same vapor problems most of the masks cause, so I gave the box to someone who uses them.

                    I’ll find out tomorrow what the physical therapy people want. If it’s going to entail aerobic exercise, something that lets me breathe will be necessary.

                    FWIW, I noticed that the mesh/lace masks were finally noticed by OR-OSHA. One of the diners was getting Karened to death with OSHA complaints about unmasked customers, so that’s definately a thing. I assume that employee preference is not a factor for those people.

                    1. Freedom and civil rights are not a factor for them. Nothing may stand in the way of getting their totalitarian jollies.

      2. HEY! Leave Michigan out of this! Maybe we just give them anywhere Whitmer, the Lt Gov, and the HHS Director have property / live / relatives.

        OK, fine, we can also give them Detroit, then they can have Windsor and North Windsor.

        1. They own property near Traverse City, in the northwestern corner of the Mitten. There are nice people there who might want to stay with us.

        2. Separate St Joe, go Benton Harbor over for the lower third.
          The lower third of the state is the ruin of the rest. TC is a bit of a blot, but some of the crud there is temporary knobs who live in Ann Arbor, Lansing and the Debtriot burbs. The College towns otherwise get outnumbered by the surrounding areas. Even purpleish Menominee went a bit more red in places (too many union nutters locally)

          1. /me looks at a map, looks at where I live on the map…
            HEY! *I’M* in that lower third!
            /me goes back to shopping property up north of Houghton Lake on Zillow

              1. There’s still a fair bit available here, some even with at least a cottage on them, for under $250k
                And that gets you 50+ acres of land all to your lonesome…
                But from what you’ve commented here, I kind of think the winters (and falls and early springs) would not be to your liking…

                  1. Depends on the layout, and how extravagant you want to be….

                    If all you want is a rimfire pistol range then 1 acre is plenty. If you want long distance you can still get away with less than 5 acres for a 1000yd range if you make it narrow.

                    But if you want to run full monty shoothouse training you *need* the space.

                  2. Heh, we want to be able to set up a nice target range, so more is better…

                  3. I’m shooting for five acres. And last week I >just< missed out on a lot out in rural Mason County (west of Seattle, pop. 66,000). But at least I'm past the "dreaming" stage and on to the "paying actual money" stage.

              2. Alas, we can’t raise a new continent of Atlantis between North America and Europe such that the displaced ocean floods the blue coast and drowns the bastions of progressive-socialism.

                  1. If Doggerland were to rise to the surface, the English would turn their entire economy to re-digging the Channel.

                    1. And well they should! Otherwise they’d be connected to FRANCE! 😛

            2. Where’s your sense of adventure? Go for north of Houghton, instead of Houghton Lake [evil grin]
              I got an Aunt and Uncle in St, Joe, iirc their daughter is in Lansing (was working for the GOP, might still) and a cousin was down near Detroit but I don’t know where he is now that he “retired” (when he retired as CFO for the Casinos, they bought a company and had him run it) and my Uncle just 4 years older than I escaped Grand Rapids (well he is now outside of Milwaukee, so it’s a wash) but really saw off everything south of Muskegon (or go full Yooperland and bomb the bridge) please! (~_^)

              1. Um, yeahno…
                I already complain more than enough when there’s a measly 6″ of snow on the ground to shovel, I can’t imagine what I’d be like dealing with the 3-4-5-6+ft they get up there…

                  1. Well, yeah, some winters I guess…
                    But you know, 3ft of snow in one night, 4ft the next, and so on…
                    /me stops being pedantic

                  2. And even that math comes up short, one station this past winter reported a TOTAL snowfall for the season of ~300 inches (25ft)

                    2. Well, *I* don’t live up there, but the station in question is somewhere in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, where they regularly get over 200″ of snow in a season…

                    4. Ah, that’s nuttin’. In the Smoky Mountains National Park there’s a mountain called Clingman’s Dome with a 45-foot observation tower on top, and a 35-foot radio antenna on top of that. Park rangers told us the whole thing is regularly buried in snow in the winters, so deep not even the end of the antenna sticks out.

                      Of course that was in the 1970’s when the next Ice Age was coming, so with Globull Wormening they could get either twice as much snow now, or none at all.

                      In North Dakota there are houses with a front door on the second floor, for when the main door is buried.

                2. okay, Munising maybe (snicker/snort) (~_^) They only get about ¾ the Snow the Keweenaw does. . .
                  Here on the Menominee I didn’t even use 5 gallons of gas in my snow blower this winter.

      3. We could use enough of the northern parts to set up a land route to Alaska that’s firmly under our control.

      4. Northern B.C. and Yukon are OK. Not sure we’d want Vancouver, never been there.

        1. If we took over BC we should hive off Vancouver and rename it New Hong Kong. It practically is already anyway.

        2. I live just outside Vancouver. You don’t want it, though I would take it as a favour if I ended up on the proposed unbroiken land route. Just saying…

    5. Last I checked you could get a Canadian permanent resident permit for $250 thousand Canadian versus the $1 million US necessary to come here. it may have gone up a bit, but there’s provision in law in both countries to allow people in if they “invest” in an enterprise zone. Drop some money on whichever the government favored grifter is and you’re in.

      1. They were fast-tracking Romanian strippers at one point. Not kidding, the Minister was asked some very embarassing questions.

        1. Romanian strippers would contribute more to society than Liberal politicians ever did.

          1. I would strongly prefer a Romanian stripper to who we have as Prime Minister right now. For one thing, she’d have a much stronger respect for the value of a dollar.

            1. I have a nephew who changed his major from physics to economics. My sister was not amused when I suggested he become a hooker because they provide an actual service that the Europeans count in their GDP. FWIW I have an MSc in financial economics so I know how worthless and pointless it really is even when it’s not a net debit to the economy. I think we’re actually worse than resentment studies majors since someone has to make the coffee.

                1. I told him that too, or phrenology, or haruspexy, or damn near anything else. His father and I told him the least he could do is go work for Goldman Sachs for a couple of years and make some real money, but the young don’t listen. He went to an Ivy and all his friends are hugely wealthy and, thus, all socialists. I hope he’ll grow out of it, I did, but it’s bad now.

                  1. Another sad thing, physics has some pretty interesting stuff going on in academia right now.

                    I have the vague impression that the academic work in economics is heavily biased towards insane nutjobbery involving government policy.

                    I read an interview of one economic thinker by another, I remain convinced that they haven’t thought through their positions on scientific investment enough, and I’m still irritated.

                    1. Interesting as in insane? While I’m all in favor of demystifying quantum physics, I’m fairly certain that replacing math with turgid political rambling, as a few feminist-intersectionalists have done in the past few years, is a step in the wrong direction.

                    2. Some of the stuff that seems to have settled enough to be moving from physics to engineering.

                      Someone with the right interests and aptitudes, getting a physics degree now, could get into all sorts of stuff over the rest of their working life.

                    3. Entanglement is entering the engineering realm now. I recall somebody working on using it in chips, and it worked. That’s a pretty cool thing.

                    4. Entanglement was definitely something I was thinking of. Not being super physics dude, I couldn’t say what else.

                      Twenty years ago, I would have said that entanglement would never be relevant to engineering.

                      Physics has a lot of interesting growth areas, even in academia. Lasers are definitely potential, and it looks like you still get a better grounding in those from a physics program than from an electrical engineering program.

                      Whereas, most of the interesting questions in economics are stuff you would have to look at outside of academia. They are interesting precisely because academic economists are a bit blinded, because of there being so little funding for pointing out Emperor Bureaucratic Funding Sources has no clothes.

                      Economics is a research area suitable for pursuit as a hobby, physics can be suited for an occupation to make a living from.

                      Youth is wasted on the young; they don’t have the life experience or self knowledge to know how much cooler or more awesome the alternatives they are overlooking are. Of course, there are a bunch who do make some early choices that are great experiences for their tastes; Hurrah for them!

              2. “I have an MSc in financial economics so I know how worthless and pointless it really is”

                You are too hard o yourself. Without that degree in financial economics of buying what hired financial economists tell you.
                ~

              1. Sadly, I must agree that the average Romanian stripper would indeed have a better moral code than the Prime Minister. Those girls work for their tips.

      2. Wait, what? Last time I read the Canadian immigration regs, you needed $25,000 in assets and a job awaiting.

        Of course, that only applies if you’re actually capable of supporting yourself. If you’re totally unskilled, have the IQ of a turnip, and hie from some third world shithole, you need merely claim to be a refugee and no problem!

        1. If you have $250k and are willing to drop it on a politically approved “investment” you don’t need a job waiting, nor be from a shithole — though why someone from a descent place would want to go to the great white north is beyond me.

          the rest is part of the law too but the person who asked me to look could count beyond 10 without taking his shoes off and didn’t qualify — and, no, he only has 10 fingers so don’t go there.

          Lots and lots of Chinese bureaucrats in need of a bolt hole should they fall out of favor with the son of heaven have the odd $250k to “invest.”

          1. Yeah, but you gotta leave *before* they throw you into the back of a truck or at least seal the borders.

    6. I’m told that you can pick up the Demented Dominion in the delete bin at Walmart, in the Nation-States-For-Sale department.

      Downside, you have to assume the trillion-dollar national debt. Every single human and moose in the country owes about $200 grand in unpaid government loans. Mooses are not known for their savings accounts, know what I mean?

    7. If they try that on a Church of England assembly, it would be interesting.

      The Filth still track their authority to the Crown, which is Elizabeth… but she’s *also* the head of the Church of England. The Filth’s chain of authority is diluted by Canada’s political status as a self-governing nation… but the Church of England is directly and solely responsible to Elizabeth II.

      On the other hand, she’s had very little to do with her Church during her reign, and might not even care. The Archbishop of Canterbury is the “principal leader”, who runs the Church, and appears to be fully Woke.

  10. I can’t comment on most of this other than to agree, but I have ideas for one or two:

    * Internet censorship: First off, get yourself a good encrypted mail service, and a good VPN. I use and recommend protonmail.com for both. It isn’t foolproof but it does make it appear to website admins that you have connected from a third country, and you have a choice of which. Second, join and explore “new media” and “new social media” sites: Gab, Parler, BitChute, Rumble, LBRY/Odysee, dailymotion, brighteon. Third, follow news feeds that the bad guys don’t control. Especially reclaimthenet.org, which comprehensively covers “cancel culture” activities. And fourth, shun all services from Google, Apple, Facebook, and Twitter because they will misuse your data in ways that help the cancellers.

    2. Someone on Wired (or maybe Arstechnica) did a series of avoiding the big three tech Companies, one a week—Apple, FaceBook, Google. To totally avoid Google took serious work and some websites broke because they wanted to load fonts from Google. I think that was in 2019.

      1. If your browser can’t find the specified web font it will use whatever its default font is. Fonts.googleapis.com is not the only font source/tracker, though probably the largest one.

        Block it in your hosts file; you’ll never miss it.

  12. Oregon “Health” Authority now has mandated masks, completely disregarding the information out there about the harm masks cause. And Despicable Kate Brown has the nerve to claim that the requirements are based on “Science”. (She also isn’t willing to put these edicts out in her own name anymore, instead dumping them off on an unidentified flunky in OHA.)

    1. “Despicable Kate Brown has the nerve to claim that the requirements are based on “Science’.”

      I’m so old I remember when the First Rule of Science was “Show your work!”

      Tis a shame there are o courts in Oregon, that one could challenge the Science.
      ~

      1. Well there’s your problem – Clearly, it is not possible to challenge anyone shouting SCIENCE!!!! if shouted loud enough.

        Loudly shouting SCIENCE!!!! is obviously sufficient justification for anything. Until the pitchforks and torches come out.

        Castle Transylvania was in the land of Vlad Dracul the Impaler that shall not be named due to the perforation of the Ceaușescus as an example of rapid governmental leadership change, but my example is torches and pitchforks as reactionary elements in opposition to shouting SCIENCE!!!! – where was Castle Frankenstein again?

        1. “SCIENCE!!!!”

          “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”

        2. I’m feeling a lot more sympathy for Vlad Dracul nowadays.

          Not a nice man… but it wasn’t a nice time, either.

      2. Part of the foundations of open source is that it is a discovery of the same peer review mechanisms that made Chemistry out of Alchemy. Shortly after this was worked out the open source evangelists made the unpleasant discovery that they had to teach the scientists this fact.

        Science has spent *waaaaay* too much time in the gilded cage of R&D.

      3. DKB appointed enough of the state judges that any court action is quite futile. I’m afraid that we’ll be moving beyond the jury box fairly soon. With luck, it will be Irish Democracy. Without luck, I’m thinking the Provos.

                2. Yep, if insults or curses could fix the damn thing, it would be perfect by now. 😛

    1. I rather prefer Foucault’s Pendulum, not to be confused with the book of the same name by Umberto Ecco, which by the way is a good read, but a bit difficult.

      2. Umberto Ecco is ALWAYS a little difficult, on account of being a really good Philology professor. (I had him for a semester, as a guest professor. MIGHT have been a summer semester. My memory is not what it used to be.)

  14. It’ll be interesting to see how the American Republic and Canada compare in a couple of years.

    What I know of Canada and Canadians, I agree that they won’t do jack. Ever. I think any of them that might do something have already moved south.

    1. I’ve come to the conclusion that Canada is the test-bed for American Leftist lunatic ideas. Outfits like TIDES and similar foundations have such penetration into the Canadian think-tank/policy mill industry that they pretty much set the agenda.

      If you let the Lefties win, the USA will end up looking exactly like Canada. Sick, broke and wearing a mask forever.

        1. How long before range targets are masked – and NOT ‘bank robber’ style, but (quasi) medico?

          Then, I think such targets should have UN blue helmets. Preparedness, you know.

  15. My hospital is complaining that I’m not filling out their daily health survey.
    I haven’t filled one out since they started “requiring it”.
    One, I’m not being treated by the hospital; so they have no clinical right to that information.
    Two, I work from home, I’m never in contact with other hospital employees, ergo, there is no transmission vector possible and therefore no reason exists to give them that information until and unless I have to go to the campus.
    Three, I haven’t been sick, period, since I’ve been working from home. That right there tells be that going into the hospital is an unhealthy environment. But why should I report no change for 380 days?
    Four, they want to send the e-mail and receive responses from my personal e-mail account. I told them they can’t have it, and I’ll be willing to use my work e-mail for that purpose. They refused and said I can’t use the work e-mail for that purpose. That right there is enough to take them to court over it.
    Meanwhile, I’m still giving them the Sarah Hoyt Double Salute.
    https://img.mewe.com/api/v2/photo/N-2zGg-4CHU8-LTIkHqirJqA53_FQfhuakwzeLjFmAFgCJjrIYrcN4pkFAk/800×800/img?static=0

    1. A significant amount of force is being wielded, or at least considered, right now.

      A local radio show that no one listens to but is oft quoted because of the presenters’ skin color claims that we’re selfish if we refuse to vaccinate and wear the slave muzzle.

      1. Biden[‘s handlers] just said that they want nationwide 70% adult vaccination by July 4th.

        Not happening. And if they want it to happen they had better come out and state the “or else” already.

        1. “Not happening. And if they want it to happen they had better come out and state the “or else” already.”

          THIS. I’m waiting for the draconian whatever. It’s like watching a deranged 13-year-old that no one listens to getting more and more spun up.

        3. They could probably get the 70% rate quite easily if they’d stop insisting that nothing is going to change after you get vaccinated.

            1. Honestly, if they said “all restrictions are now gone, come on in and get the jab if you want it”, they would see demand go through the roof.

              1. In Iowa, they did that….

                And demand cratered.

                To the ponint that they had to turn back vaccine deliveries.

                  1. Thinking on it, I’m not sure you are incorrect, for anyplace that didn’t go as systematic but get out of the way as Iowa.

                    It was probably tempered by the early restrictions being pretty much “anybody in a job where the jab might be useful” and the last few restrictions being stuff like “if you have any co-morbidities” that covered pretty much everything, plus we had that guy who figured out how to skim and auto-post places that had available vaccines.

                    I know I heard of other states requiring you to get your shots in specific locations based on where you live; in Iowa, you had Hy-Vee going “Oh, yes, I see you’ve got hypertension because you already use our pharmacy, you can get jabbed anywhere in the state.”

                    Those two things combined to make it so our demand is just weird compared to “you must go to your primary care providers and get scheduled to get the shot” thing.

        4. Biden’s goals have a way of mutating without notice of the MNM:

          Biden Sets ‘Bold’ Goal of 790,000 Shots Per Day until July 4
          Today, President Biden set a goal of 70 percent of adult Americans having at least one coronavirus vaccine shot by the Fourth of July. Much like Biden’s 100 million shots in 100 days, this figure sounds impressive and ambitious, but appears much less daunting once you look at the current rate.

          As of this morning, according to the CDC, 56.3 percent of Americans over age 18 have at least one dose — 145.3 million adults. Reaching the 75 percent threshold will require another 48.2 million shots.

          That sounds like a lot, but there are 61 days between tomorrow and July 4 — meaning the United States needs to average a bit more than 790,000 shots per day. While the number of shots administered per day has dropped from a peak in mid-April, the U.S. is still averaging 2.29 million shots per day.

          If, starting tomorrow, the U.S. averages half what the current average is — about 1.14 million per day –we will still hit Biden’s goal before the end of June.

          [END]

          Apparently the Biden Administration relies on reporters journolists being bad at math.
          ~

          1. They’ve been relying on bad math even since before he took office. Remember the “100 million people vaccinated by 100 days in” boast, when 1 million people a day were already being vaccinated when President Trump was still in the White House?

            😛

            1. They are relying on media and tech oligarchs who are in the tank for them and are fully committed as acting as both the propaganda arm and thought police of the Democratic Party.

        5. Only reason why I raced to get the shots is to stop having to deal with the mask and distancing nonsense. Want to make me go rage monster on you? Tell me that I still have to mask and distance even after being shot.

        6. If the would-be enforcers get their richly-deserved fate, would the reduction in total population improve the statistics?

      2. “A local radio show … claims that we’re selfish if we refuse to vaccinate and wear the slave muzzle.”

        That is an assertion unsupported by facts, an assertion without an argument. It is a bully’s tactic, denouncing you as selfish for not sharing your lunch, not doing what he wants when he is unwilling to concede the slightest bit toward you.

        Most girls get their fill of that sort of argument in the interval between puberty’s onset and high school graduation.
        ~

        1. “You’re being selfish withholding your affection and body from me.”

          Well doggone my parents for teaching me not to play those kind of games with women. Look at all the years I’ve missed out!

          1. There once was a college that had “withholding sex and affection” on its lists of forms of domestic abuse.

            For a while, too, while it was held up for ridicule.

            1. Well, the Puritans believed that the husband owed “sex” to his wife.

              IE If she wasn’t getting “sex” from him, the community could & did harass him. 😀

              Of course, that’s likely not what the college had in mind and there is the idiocy of “liberal” young women who think that young men that the young women “like” have to have sex with the young women (which wasn’t the Puritan view of things). 😆

              1. Not limited to the Puritans. Standard issue Christianity. How on earth could marriage prevent the wife from “burning” if she didn’t have a right?

                1. Nod.

                  Of course, I’ve heard Jewish people say that is part of Jewish Law relating to marriage.

                  1. Yep, with provisions for reduced rate if you have a job that takes you travelling

  16. No, I hadn’t heard about Jemisin’s entry and really don’t want to look it up.

    Can somebody elaborate/give me the breakdown?

      1. I will confess to morbid curiosity, but should I indulge, I won’t be giving her any of my money.

      2. After looking over the wiki, I change my mind: I’ve been known to indulge in some Sheri Tepper, who writes about similar subject matter only with a focus on feminism and environmentalism, but Tepper was a skilled writer who managed to inject some subtlety in the build up before showing what’s going on (except if a reader goes in knowing anything about Tepper, said reader will know what the book is building up to) and Jemisin is clearly no Tepper.

        1. Tepper had a tendency to create some really fascinating worldbuilding, then sideline it for her obsessions. I loved the concepts life cycle of the peepers/hounds/Hippae/Foxen in Grass, and the mysterious Arbai who came before, and the other biological elements, to the point I really wanted the book about the exploration of that, instead of all the “look how awful humans are” stuff.

          It’s a measure of her skill in the good parts that I kept reading through the rest just to get to the next bit of information about her fictional xenobiology.

            1. Try T. Kingfisher. She’s great! Paladin of Grace, Paladin of Strength, Swordheart and the Clocktaur War.

        2. I liked some early Tepper, back in the 70’s. Sounds like I didn’t miss much by not reading later Tepper.

      3. …seen the concept done better in far too many other books, graphic novels, and games. And, I can not give Jemisin any money in the process of not having to read it.

      1. The awards are actually more useful now; they’re a flashing “RUN AWAY!” warning.

      2. “As usual, the author has created a resonant theme, which seems to be that we’re all stronger together.”

        Not all of us it seems…

          1. OT. Braved myself to read your books. I always have trouble reading people I already like. I’m afraid I won’t like the book, see?
            BUT poking around your page….. You look a lot like your drawing. No, not literally, but….. the feel is the same. (Yes, it’s a compliment.)

            1. I have noticed that artists often look like their work. Not literally (usually) but there’s often something about it that makes you say ‘oh, yes! That makes sense.’

              I’m glad my vibe is consistent. ❤

        3. So… if you’re an avatar of a city borough, you can’t possibly have a spouse and children and decent relatives? You’re an avatar of “City life stinks, run away, run away”? And how many stereotypes can you put into a book allegedly about breaking stereotypes?

          And what the heck is she doing dragging in the Lenape/Delawares? It’s the Mohawks who tend to live in the NYC area, for obvious reasons. I’m not saying there couldn’t be, but why would you pick that tribe?

          1. Lots of old stories in NYC about the Mohawks working the high iron building skyscrapers. They came from upstate fort he work and went home when they weren’t working. My grandfather knew a bunch of them back in the day.

            That said, there were still Lenape Indians living in the caves at Inwood Hill Park into the 1930’s. My MIL remembered them being there when she was a child. The area was fairly rural until the A train went in. Inwood is the site of Shorakkopoch Rock (around 207th street) where Pieter Minuet bought Manhattan Island for $24 (60 Guilders] from the Lenape back in 1621. Pity they didn’t invest it because at compound interest that $24 would now be worth more than the current value of all the buildings on Manhattan island, but that would bust the narrative.

          1. I think Sen. Reid had already covered that by expressing gratitude he would no longer have to suffer the stench of massed tourists who were, unquestionably, “stronger together.”.
            ~

        5. They preach unity but practice division. I mean, just look how the Left behaves whenever it has power.

          1. Their idea of “unity” is lockstep adherence to the Democratic Party line and complete capitulation by all who disagree. This is true whether they are in the majority or minority. They are the political equivalent of “heads we win, tails you lose”.

            1. Their idea of “unity” is remarkably congruent to Islam’s idea of “peace.” That’s one of the reason’s they get along so well.

              That and they both hate America as constituted. Permitting people to live their lives as they will??? Blasphemy!
              ~

              1. I recall back during the Cold War learning (possibly apocryphally) that the Russian “mir” didn’t really mean “peace” the way it does in English; the connotations were more “the sense of calm once all your enemies are defeated”.

  17. Dang. When California is more sane than what I’m seeing here, it’s definitely the Crazy Years. (Home Despot has been open, things are currently slated to open entirely on June 15th—think the recall for the governor has anything to do with that?—and heck, I served on a jury for a trial last fall, and while there were restrictions, they actually had opened up the court to do these trials.)

  18. As you well know, this isn’t about the WUFLU … it is about the Great Reset where we become serfs of the government and don’t own a thing… and LOVE it. BTW I don’t remember Michael Focault…for some reason. It made me want to vomit– after looking him up and I got the sanitized google version.

    1. That’s okay. The main thing I know about Foucault is that he apparently had a pendulum.

      😛

      1. He’s the intellectual father of the Critical Race Theory nonsense currently crippling the universities of Western Civilization.

        Fortunately he’s dead. Currently enjoying an extended vacation somewhere along the River Styx no doubt.

        1. “Currently enjoying an extended vacation somewhere along the River Styx no doubt.”

          More probably in Tartarus, grading First Semester Freshman Philosophy papers – with a requirement to grant at least 70% passing grades while still correcting every error.
          ~

        1. Yup. there was Leon Focault, the French physicist, (1819-1868), and then there was Michel Focault, (1926-1984) the French philosopher.

    1. I for one am relieved that there is an alliance of business and government to prevent fascism. Big business, supported by and supporting big government, and street thugs (I mean activists! Activists for justice!) are the only thing that can prevent fascism. I love and trust our leaders, for they know what is best.

      1. Well, at least Bob is making as much sense as BobtheRegisterd makes. Which means things aren’t THAT bad yet.

    2. Have you seen the CIA’s new recruiting ad? It’s like a woke parody competition to check all the boxes, but not once did it mention actual qualificiations. (And I know I sure want someone with “generalized anxiety disorder” in a spy agency…. for the enemy, perhaps….) Think it was Lauren Chen who featured it on her vid yesterday. Egads!

      1. When (if) we get a good administration on board, the FBI, CIA, and DOD are among the first agencies that need to be leveled. The ad was about as inspiring as having a group of trannies spilling their stories in an ad for the Marines.

        1. I recall reading somewhere that the best way to get a job in the FBI is to get a law degree. No considering the lack of morality in today’s FBI management, I’d think I’d rather have them get a twin degree in ethics and logic.

          1. I can believe that, actually. If ever there were a time when the Famous But Incompetent Bureau had not been evil, a cadre of lawyers might have been appropriate. After all, it used to be that a law degree did focus on both ethics and logic (with a bit of philosophy and rhetoric, to boot), all of which are as necessary to an effective practice as research and writing skills.

            (The law degree does not, of course, actually teach “the law.” In the modern USA, at least, it’s too voluminous and comes from too many sources that change too frequently to memorize and be able to give good advice. Rather, the degree is supposed to teach you appropriate methods of research, analysis, and argumentation, so that when a client brings you a problem you can find them the right answer (and explain to them, the other side, and the judge why it is the right answer)).

            Judging by each year’s new associates and their quality of work, that seems to be less and less true. But maybe I’m just getting old and crotchety.

            1. Check out that letter from that 150+ law deans.

              Odds are, recent law school graduates came from an institution whose chief bureaucrat is a moron when it comes to understanding the factors that control the influence of law schools on the professional reputation of lawyers.

              They said some things that could create an appearance of collusion to deny legal representation to subset of individuals.

              Use of the formal legal system to resolve grievances only makes sense if one can trust the impartiality of judges, and that one can hire lawyers who will honestly act as agents to their customers.

              Convincing someone that lawyers will conspire to defraud them is likely to decrease the resources they are willing to spend on legal disputes.

              1. I’m familiar with the letter in question, and consider its creation and publication among my profession’s darkest moments in recent history. I view it as fundamentally a manifestation of the distressing and accelerating movement toward a two-tier justice system in this country, which is one of its deadlier afflictions.

                For what its worth, fools of that sort are a minority among attorneys, even acknowledging that there are a distressing number of leftists in my profession. Many — even most — of us still view our ethical obligations as paramount, including the duty to devote the whole of your ability to the zealous advocacy of your client’s case, even if you find their views personally repugnant. See, e.g. Model Rules of Professional Conduct Rule 1.2(b).

                Sorry — as a government attorney myself, it’s a matter of great concern to me. I do what I can, of course, but the scope of my ability and authority is limited.

                1. Just saying what you’ve said here does some good.

                  I do not have personal contact with many lawyers. I’ve mainly been hearing from lunatics, and silence otherwise.

                  I would quibble about /two/ tier justice system. Two tier within the formal legal system, but practically, there would be at least three tiers. One tier for favored groups within the formal system, one tier for disfavored groups within the formal system, and at least one tier for outside of the formal system.

            2. The Fibbies and the ATF are competing to see which one will be the Gestapo, and which one the Stasi.

              Mainly because the Gestapo had snazzier uniforms.
              ———————————
              “Speed, stealth and snappy red uniforms!”

          2. Through the Hoover era, at least, you had to have either a law or accounting degree to be a “special agent.” Nowadays, I don’t know.

      2. In fairness, anxiety disorder can be compatible with the sort of paranoia appropriate in counter intelligence.

        Against that, if the work is hard on sanity, making a point of carving out exceptions for the mentally ill may result in too many who are dysfunctional or non-functional.

  21. Been watching The Death of Stalin and thinking: well things could always be worse.

    These folks remind me of some of our contemporary elites…

    1. I wonder if there are ever conversations like this in the corridors of power?

      1. Of course. “It’s all down in writing. I have it here in writing in a long f**** list.”
        And that’s the secretaries in the PMO to Cabinet Ministers!

      2. And note the little girl just standing there quietly in the background watching the whole thing.

        Under ordinary circumstances, someone would probably have her and her family killed not long afterwards.

        On a more serious note, given the rumors about who consorted with Epstein, and how much similar degeneracy probably happens involving those in the halls of power… probably.

    2. I remember reading someone’s comments about this film (Moe Lane, I think), and he noted that everyone in the film is running scared… except for Gen. Zukov, who just looks like he’s having fun.

      And then he remembered that historically, Zukov hadn’t been in the capitol for quite some time – again, unlike everyone else in the movie.

      (it was a self-imposed political exile, iirc, that probably helped him avoid getting killed by Stalin; though oddly, Stalin called him back to Moscow right before Stalin died)

      1. “I [fornicated] Hitler; I think I can take on a fat lump in a waistcoat.”

        Love that movie.

      2. I also love the part where Zukov is brought into the plot and immediately takes it over and comes up with a better plan

  22. Once upon a time, we Americans threw the tea in the harbor, and dared Parliament to do something about it. They did, back and forth it went, then we gave them a very pointed response. Years later, we won Independence.

    Canadians should take a lesson from that.

    Don’t screw around with the tea. Dump Parliament in the harbor. Cut to to good part.

    1. What do you have against fish??

      On second thought… worth sacrificing a few fish…

            1. Unfortunately, that hasn’t been true since Dewey, Cheatem, & Howe v. Selachimorpha over a rather contentious billing matter after a lost tort defense.

              2. I once tripped over a REAL law firm named “Dewey, Cheatam, and Howe”. Apparently they’d unintentionally collected all the names and thought it was hilarious, so they used it. On their website.

                1. Back in 1998 when I was playing a vampire lawyer in the local Camarilla LARP, I tried to get the firm my character secretly controlled entered into the record as “Dewey, Cheatham & Howe” but dammit, my storyteller (GM equivalent) wouldn’t let me. “DCH & Associates” was the closest I could get.

                2. >> “I once tripped over a REAL law firm named “Dewey, Cheatam, and Howe”.”

                  I have to ask: how did that work out for them?

    2. Make sure when you do, to loot Home Depot and pick up chicken wire and concrete, before throwing them in the harbor. Wrap them up in chicken wire-two layers will do-and pour the concrete around the bottom of the wire and secure the top.

      Keeps the body from coming back up for a while.

    3. A glance at the Declaration of Independence indicates our current Feral government is a worse oppressor than George III and his governors.

      1. Truth. But can you convince 1/3rd of the country to take up arms against the government in order to remove the rot? Or even get them to agree what the rot is?

        2. I think Col. Kratman addressed that in his first published novel. I think it not beyond belief that Texas might revolt over the lack of defense of the southern border as well as other factors (e.g., the war on petroleum, aka suppression of our industries) and it is not hard to imagine a number of nearby states joining them in suing for severance of national bonds. It is easy to contemplate memes replete with “Jesusland” maps reminding the Progressives “Y’all have wanted shed of us for decades, here’s your wish granted.”

          Interesting FAQ here: Texas Secession Facts
          • Doesn’t the Texas Constitution reserve the right of Texas to secede?
          • Didn’t the outcome of the “Civil War” prove secession is not an option for any State?
          • Didn’t the U.S. Supreme Court in Texas v. White prove secession is unconstitutional?
          • Is Texas really ripe for a secession movement?
          • How would Texas—and Texans—benefit from secession?
          • Are there any organized efforts to promote a Texas secession?
          • Why exactly are y’all selling bumper stickers?
          ~

          1. Secession is an option for any state. It’s the process that’s the problem. War didn’t work for the South. What might have worked was the reverse of the process by which a state joins the Union.

    4. There is a very robust independence movement in Quebec, and has been since the 1960s. The Frenchies have been jacking Ottawa up for goodies for 60 some-odd years now. Somehow they managed to -barely- lose the referendum every time.

      Mostly the result seems to be Special Deals for large Quebec companies (fascism, you know) and French on the cornflakes box since I was a kid. Nothing else has really changed.

      Currently, there is the beginnings of an independence movement in Alberta. Oil country is getting mighty tired of being screwed by Ottawa. What started mostly as a joke about Buffalo Country is getting to be a pretty decent sized thing.

      Funny enough, Ottawa isn’t playing nice with Alberta the way they do with Quebec.

  23. The federal minister in charge of the housing portfolio (Raises hand from back of the class and waves it at the teacher) “Ummm…”

    2. It’s Canada. We have government Ministries, not Departments. I just couldn’t remember the guy’s name and couldn’t be bothered to look it up.

      Basically the price of housing in Canada is spiking hard, driven by off-shore money (mostly from China but some from Europe, nervous Germans) and the government is quite happy to let that continue. Leading to the -average- price for a single family detached house in Ontario topping $1,000,000.00 in many towns.

      A million bucks.That’s the price of a three-bedroom bungalow built in 1970, ~1,500-2,000 square feet, with a yard. You want a -nice- house with a big yard, that’s getting up toward two million.

      With government approval. Okay? Nice if you own a house already, not so nice if you’re a kid just starting out. Because this is Canada. It gets COLD here in the winter. Shelter is not optional.

      Oh, build new housing you say? No. Can’t do that. Environmentalists, you know. Housing bad, agriculture bad, mining bad, oil bad. Nature good.

      Causes. We got some.

      1. All of ON, or just near Toronto? We have been semi-seriously considering moving to London from here in Langley BC

        1. London is less insane than 905 area code, but from St. Catherines all the way around the lake through Hamilton, Burlington, Oakville, Toronto and out to Pickering, the prices are insane. Guelph, Waterloo, Kitchener as well. It’s madness. Stuff that was $500k last year is $900k this year. Toronto has gone a little slower with increase, but only because they were insane already.

          Be sure to do a real estate search for London area so you know what you’re getting into. It might be better than BC, it’ll certainly be better than Toronto, but less so than one might hope.

          Please note, I am not a realtor. I am but a humble phantom, stumbling through life like everybody else. ~:D

  24. I recently left a hardware store in a bit of a huff. The sales clerk called out to me and chased me down the aisle insisting I *had* to wear a mask. I’m not usually deliberately disrespectful of the rules of a given establishment, but we have to push back against this nonsense or it will never end.

    The governor’s *legal* authority to order anything ran out last year sometime. I asked the clerk how he thought the mask rules were ever going to end. He shouted at me that it didn’t matter, the orders were orders and who was I to question them? I said nevermind, I didn’t need anything that badly.

    Now I have to find a different hardware store.

    1. Yeah. Ask them when they’ll feel safe enough to be without masks and you’ll find out they only know and believe what the MSM tells them.

      1. The crazy thing is none of this are these people’s idea. None of them chose any of this. None of them individually decided that this is how they wanted to run things in their store. They were threatened by government, and threatened by health boards – but even that isn’t the thing that drives me crazy. People internalize commands in a way I’d never have expected before this.

        Apparently Bill Gates was part of some committee in one of the infinite NGOs discussing how to reorganize society to fight some infectious disease in *October* of 2019! COVID was just whatever was handy that came along. They would have pushed these buttons regardless of what illness came down the pike.

        The problem is people have these buttons to push! They take on the commands and moralizing of authority as if it’s their own thinking, even when its clearly something imposed.

        1. The mask thing here in Ontario is 100% mandatory. There are several videos of store security tackling and sitting on people without masks over the last year. There’s a famous one of Canadian Tire worth looking at, the guy had a medical exemption for acute asthma and they friggin’ tackled him to the ground. He’s suing, last I heard. I hope he wins a zillon bucks.

          Had they done that to a shoplifter they’d have all been charged with assault. We know this because other store security have been charged over the last few years for tackling shoplifters and other thieves.

          So yeah, I wear the mask. But I can’t stand the stupid paper ones. They fog my glasses and they don’t actually -do- anything. I wear the big, full coverage spray paint mask with the twin filters. Lately I’ve been contemplating using the one with the faceplate for the eyes as well, just to really make the point. You wanna play safety? Okay, let’s play. Take your safety kabuki mask and shove it, Karen. THIS is a friggin’ mask that will actually filter out a virus. You dumb beeotch.

          What I find funny is that I’ve been wearing a mask -much- longer than the rest of these Karens. I started wearing the paint mask and gloves at the supermarket in early March 2020, when the Feds were telling us masks didn’t work. Nobody was telling us anything so I assumed the worst and prepared accordingly. You need to filter a virus? N-95 or N-99 will do it. Dentist mask? No.

          That was before I knew the recovery rate for my age group was 99.97%, according to the WHO numbers which we know are jiggered to make things look worse. Almost nobody under 80 dies from this thing, unless they have a serious pre-existing condition. Even over-80 years old the WHO says recovery is over 90%.

          The same people who looked at me funny for wearing a mask at the beginning are looking at me funny now when I take it off in the parking lot. I conclude from this that most people have no f-ing clue what goes on in the world, and just smugly assume they’ve got it all figured out. Must be nice to fit in, eh?

          Then there’s the “vaccine.” I actually went and looked up how it works. And I said “mRNA? Oh HELL no!” It’s a frigging mad science experiment, not a vaccine. Just lately my initial skepticism has been looking better and better, is about all I’ll say for now.

          1. Take it off in the parking lot? I’m taking it off as soon as I walk away from the register where I’ve already paid and I’m walking out of the door. I have enough troubles with Karen’s and a working small medical alert service dog. (Comments and the confrontation don’t bother me. But I was already so dang tired of Karen’s before the masks.)

            I swear. One of these days I’ll just fall down in a light faint. Except getting up off the dang floor is a pain. Actual pain. As in owwwww. Dang knee.

            They tackle me and they’ll think lawsuit. My knee won’t take tackling. I won’t be getting up off the floor short of EMT’s. Walking, even hobbling? Forget it. Not without crutches. Not Canada, but Oregon seems to be taking their clues from Canada’s playbook.

            1. As a practical matter, the paint respirator is -much- easier to wear than the stupid face diaper. Breathing effort is lower, your mouth doesn’t have something on it because there’s room inside the face piece, and the damn mask actually FILTERS the air. If somebody actually does have WuFlu (or the T-virus!) the mask will filter it. Added bonus, it doesn’t fog your glasses.

              I’m familiar with the knee. Super fun, right?

              1. I’m familiar with the knee. Super fun, right?

                –
                No.

                Doctor wants me in a brace. I haven’t found one that I wouldn’t rather saw the leg off with a pen knife rather than wear. Probably could find a brace that I could stand if I lost 60 or so pounds. Yep. That is going sooooo well … Not!

                1. Me too, I could stand to shed 20lbs myself. Although, I lost 15 last March due to straight-up stress and not eating and it didn’t seem to make much difference to the knee. Once I stopped panicking, of course, those 15lbs came right back, but I haven’t gained any since. Weight loss is a much more complex issue than anyone gives it credit for.

                  Currently, the knee is mostly behaving. Which is -awesome-. I can walk from the house to the barn and not need a cripple-stick. ~:D Longer distances no, but I’ll take what I can get.

          2. Was it here that it was mentioned that being dog-tired sometime after Dose Two of the Two-Step shots (I have some risk factors and that Derek Lowe has no issue with getting such is *some* relief. But, we’ll see… If I were a more fit and much younger, I wouldn’t risk it.) was an indication of likely having a previous WuFlu infection? I had that, but don’t recall symptoms (unless February 2020’s 50 hours of Potty Emergency every two hours was NOT foodborne…). Ma & now 98 yro friend had the reaction – and suspect they had the WuFlu in January 2020 (and might well have got it from my excursion to Mayo.) Both are in rather good health. Ma still walks many places when tghe weather is decent, and that does a lot more than just save wear on the car.

            And I, too, need to… reduce my tonnage.

            1. There have been some recent scientific developments that have increased my already large skepticism regarding the mRNA device being marketed as a vaccine. Sarah can post them if she wants them on her blog, I leave the decision up to her. Personally, I see no reason to risk the under-tested mad science experiment. They’ll have to stick a gun in my face at this point.

              Still, both my 90+ year old parents have had dose 1 with no apparent side effects at all, so that’s good. How much protection that affords them is an open question. I guess we will see.

              One good thing, the facility they’re living in has top-notch infection control protocols in place. Better than hospital level cleanliness, mask-gown-and-gloves for the staff, no visitors, 2 week quarantine for new residents, all the proper things. Logical and well implemented, and a very rare thing in senior’s residences around here. Usually the places are pits of despair and doom.

    2. Ehh, I hate being rude, and I was a little rude about it. But how will this ever end? They, whether they are the various levels of government, or large companies, are never going to give us *permission* to live normally ever again.

      We have to disobey, or this never ends.

        1. Telling me what to do is beyond rude so I’ll damn well be rude back. If enough people were rude enough, this shit would END.

          1. I like being invisible. (Phantom, right?) Some people find me rude no matter what I do. Even if I stand still with my hands in my pockets and say nothing, I’m rude. I’ve been called rude for saying “good morning.” My mere existence is an affront to some. Invisible is best, for me.

            But if I can’t be invisible, I like following the rules -too-much-. Way too much. It makes the point, and it gives Karen zero traction. Karen hates it, let me tell you.

            They’ll tackle and incarcerate the guy with no mask. They won’t touch me, the rude guy with the friggin’ full coverage gas mask. But they get the message. The weird guy with the massive overkill respirator is daring them to say anything. “Make my day, Karen.” They never, ever do.

            Karen is a coward. Use her cowardice against her. Flood your city with gas-mask wearing zombies. Shamble around groaning “braaaains” at the Karen-infested hardware store. Covid-cosplay for the win.

        2. I dislike being rude, but I hate being some people‘s definition of polite.
          ~

    3. One of the local hardware stores has two mask signs on their doors. One is usual thing citing state mandate. The other mentions that due to ADA and HIPPA they cannot ask about such things, so anyone not masked will be assumed to have some condition that requires not wearing a mask. It does not quite come out and say, “such as sanity.”

    4. “He shouted at me that it didn’t matter, the orders were orders and who was I to question them? ”

      It’s always nice when the Good Germans self identify. Although “Befehl ist Befehl” sounds better in the mother tongue.

  25. My main takeaway is that you could use some more dumb hicks up in Canada.

    No, you can’t have ours. Ours are smart enough to live in the habitable zone.

    1. For various definitions of habitable. There are temperatures I find comfortable that others complain as being cold, and when they claim to be comfortable, I muse that they must have grown up in “Beautiful downtown Hell.” (And NOT the one in Michigan, or Norway.)

      1. “In India, ‘cold weather’ is merely a conventional phrase and has come into use through the necessity of having some way to distinguish between weather which will melt a brass door-knob and weather which will only make it mushy.”

        — Mark Twain

        1. Which is the perfect place to drop this:

          https://www.poetryloverspage.com/poets/kipling/pagett_mp.html

          “We reached a hundred and twenty once in the Court at noon,
          (I’ve mentioned Pagett was portly) Pagett, went off in a swoon.
          That was an end to the business; Pagett, the perjured, fled
          With a practical, working knowledge of “Solar Myths” in his head.

          And I laughed as I drove from the station, but the mirth died out on my lips
          As I thought of the fools like Pagett who write of their “Eastern trips,”
          And the sneers of the traveled idiots who duly misgovern the land,
          And I prayed to the Lord to deliver another one into my hand.”

    1. It might work in some parts of Texas. What’s wrong with warm weather? Cold weather requires firewood while warm weather merely requires electricity for A/C the gift of a benevolent Deity.

      1. Dealing with Cold is conceptually simple: add insulation to the system, add energy to the system. Done.

        Dealing with Heat is a nightmare. There is no solution, only a bunch of bad rube goldberg imitations of one that never even get rid of the heat, just push it off somewhere else where it might be somewhat less annoying.

        1. There was at least one experiement (in Texas, as I recall) that had the heat pumps pump the heat into an underground water tank – and then used the heat in the cooler season(s). But I do not know how effective it was nor how (im)practical it turned out to be.

          2. I’ve been reading about these heat pump systems since the 1970s. Save up heat in the summer and use it in the winter. Great idea.

            The problem with heat pump systems is ROI. Water tanks are expensive, particularly when you have to insulate them. Digging a hole is expensive. Pipe is expensive. Pumps, labor to assemble, all costly. You end up with a pretty big nut to crack.

            The other thing -nobody- talks about is maintenance. You’ve got a whole plumbing system running hot water with antifreeze in it. Same freeze/thaw annual cycle is working on it that works on everything else, so you get leaks. Gotta fix ’em. Pumps wear out, etc. Fluid evaporates from the system, you have to keep adding more.

            Electricity cost. Gotta run those pumps.

            Bottom line, there’s very little profit once you add all that up. No such thing as a free lunch. Look how much Texas just paid for their “free” wind energy. Your profit/loss calculation usually changes at the whim of the electric company, its down to pumping cost.

            Wood stove cheaper. ~:D

        2. I much prefer Dallas to New York City. We heat in the cold and air condition + fan in the warm. Texas is a much nicer state than NY. Pushing away heat is good enough for me. I don’t think that you can get rid of the heat.

          1. I once read a story in which they used heat pumps and radiated the heat out into space.

            1. Perhaps we need a civil action suit against the sun for delivering irregular product?

              I’ve got a good law firm for this: Goniff, Goniff, & Schiester. Victory guaranteed or your next trial is free.
              ~

            2. Cooling laser! You concentrate the heat, use it to make electricity and drive a laser with it. Designed to investigate the corona of the sun without melting.

              1. David Brin, ‘Sundiver’. Then some rat-bastard Galactic sabotaged the ship until the only thing that worked right was the human-built laser system.

    2. “Threaten to either be admitted as states in the United States or you’ll form your own national government.”

      Americans always say this. 😉

      If we managed to get Canada pulled together, with a 25% cap on taxes and a requirement that you show up to the polling place with your long gun or you don’t get to vote, American states would be demanding to join -us-. We’d end up with Texas, Florida, Arizona and Alaska being Canadian provinces. And possibly Northern California. ~:D

      Y’all can keep New York south of Putnam County. Because eww.

      1. Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, half of Washington, 3/4 of Oregon, and a bit of California. Not sure about Utah, or Nevada.

      2. Would a shot gun qualify? I’ve got a ladies’ 20 gauge. My only other gun is a revolver. Hubby is the gun enthusiast.

        1. Ha ha, that’s a can of worms isn’t it? ~:D Requiring the nation’s ladies to present themselves with their firearm at the polls if they want to exercise the franchise? Woohoo, women’s lib turbo-nitrous version!

          There is some SJW lurker out there right now having the biggest cow in history. Man, I can almost hear the screaming.

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