Saturday, January 5, 2019

My Debate with Bill Ayers

I've been engaging in a debate on Facebook with a guy who calls himself, Bill Ayers. His profile suggests he is the same Bill Ayers who was engaged in urban terrorism in the U.S. back in the 1960s before he settled on a strategy of intellectual terrorism by becoming a University professor.

Now, anyone can pretend to be someone else on Facebook, so I have my doubts about whether this Bill Ayers is the same guy as the notorious communist. I would also have imagined that the real Bill Ayers would be a lot smarter than this guy.

Anyway, this was his last reply to me,

Just thinking (with sympathy) about all the things---beyond socialist roads and socialist wheat---you can't have because your so amazingly and consistently self-reliant: socialist toilets (god-damned government monopoly on sanitation systems), socialist water (don't touch the stuff---it's tainted by the god-damned government); socialist garbage dumps (keep the god-damned government's hands off my trash) socialist fire department (why should you fund the god-damned government fire fighters when the fire is someone else's house?)

Jeez, Bill. You still going on about this? I must have really triggered you. With sympathy, I hope you have a crying room nearby.

Road Socialism

I had to laugh out loud when the first item in your list happened to be socialist roads. I mean, are you kidding me? Socialist roads?

If anyone wants to really know about how socialism works in practice, all they have to do is look at the roads. The cracks, the potholes, the endless construction projects with the endless lines of idling vehicles spewing CO2 into the atmosphere, the idiotic rules, speed bump vandalism, vacant bicycle lanes, rainbow crosswalks, and the death toll. Yep, a better example of socialism in practice, visible to anyone on a daily basis, can scarcely be found.

And you trip right into this as your first "example" of socialism. Too funny.

Another thought on socialist roads. Driving is not a right. It's a privilege.

And of course, in response to the monstrous problems caused by socialized roads, the geniuses of government come up with this brilliant idea:

Socialized transit.

You can't make this shit up.

When I think of socialized transit, I think of box-cars full of newly-liberated Soviet workers on their way to work in Siberia and similar idyllic destinations. Public transit at its best.

Stalin's LRT

Wheat

And what's this about "socialist wheat?" When I think about socialist wheat I can't help think, again, about its great track record in the socialist Soviet Union with the Holodomor, and the Great Socialist Famine in Mao's China. Socialist wheat? Not a good example, Bill.

Socialist Toilets

You've got me on the socialist toilets point. Any anarcho-libertarian who has viewed the British series on "Filthy Cities," would find an excellent example from history of a serious issue that does not solve itself without government intervention. For now, I will give you points for this example. I will accept a limited role for government in some areas of life.

Then again, given all that is known about sanitation, it doesn't surprise me that the great bastion of American socialism-in-practice, San Francisco, continues to look more like medieval London, or some other third-world shithole. How long before platform shoes become fashionable again in San Fran? Only those blinded by Marxist ideology can fail to see the real world results of their religion in practice.

Perhaps when you refer to "socialist toilets" you really mean the countries and jurisdictions that adopt socialism?

Water

Socialist water? Not necessarily necessary, but in the absence of a better idea, yeah, let the government handle the delivery of some of the water. Private companies, like Walmart, can do the rest.

Garbage Dumps

Socialist garbage dumps? Are you talking about their jurisdictions again here? Or are you referencing the disposal of garbage, in which case, private garbage dumps could do the same job? Ditto for firefighting.

The question for the population, to the extent that they have a say in the matter, which of course, they don't have under socialism is, "Do we want to continue the unprecedented high standard of living we have come to regard as normal under a predominantly capitalist system, or would we rather live in a socialist toilet?"

Socialist Toilet

Capitalist Toilet



The Obama Gas Station - you can't make this shit up.

and now that you've done your homework, you can have this:

Thursday, January 3, 2019

Should Uber go into the Pot Business in Hamilton?

What difference would it make?

Consider the following fake report, courtesy of Uncle Block's Bullshit Detection Academy:

Councillor supports additional resources for police effort to close Illegal taxi operators.

Colon doesn't have much faith in courts to impose maximum penalties

City Coun. Collin Colon said he would support providing additional resources to Hamilton police in the ongoing effort to shut down illegal taxicab operators.

“I’d love to confiscate every single car that’s involved with this. I’ll be the first one to work with my colleagues to give (police) the resources,” Colon said during the first Hamilton Police Services Board meeting of the new council term.

City councillor and fellow new police board member Naomi Chomsky asked Chief Pondar Zullini to elaborate on the difficulty of permanently shutting down illegal taxi operators.

“We want to make sure we do it properly,” Zullini said.

“I’d love to confiscate every single taxi that’s involved with this."

Collin Colon

Deputy Chief Vink Blohrheim spoke to city councillors at a general issues committee earlier in the week regarding challenges shutting down illegal taxi cabs. He noted 30 Uber drivers were pulled over and given summons between January and October this year. Of those, none ever paid a fine and went right back into business.

Zullini noted one former illegal taxi operator told councillors they averaged between $200 and $400 a day. He said a minimum fine of around $0.00 is seen as the cost of doing business (And by gosh! The price is right!) and doesn’t stop the illegal cabs from operating.

Blohrheim told the board that since legalization in October, no more Uber cabs were pulled over and none were shut down. Meanwhile, the non-exempt, non-Uber cabs continued to be subject to rigorous bylaw enforcement.

“There might be a perception in the courts that it’s just a business. It’s not. There’s no regulations,” Zullini said.

Blohrheim said that impounding the cars of illegal taxi operators would require the police, and the City of Hamilton, to accept legal liability for the cabs and any assets inside. That would incur additional costs such as hiring security.

“We don’t want to expose the police, and the city, to lawsuits,” Zullini said.

He said he’s holding out hope the courts will recognize the huge profit margin of the illegal taxis and the risks involved in unregulated cabs that could be mixed with other modes of transportation.

“I don’t have great faith in the courts doing the maximum,” Colon said. “My fear is we’ll be left in the same situation, with dozens open. I firmly believe the federal and provincial governments have dropped the ball.”


Uncle Block's Thoughts on Pot Shops.

One thing I have noticed on my daily travels throughout the Hamilton area is that, unlike the Beer Store and the LCBO, the pot shops don't have a panhandler stationed outside.

The fake news report I presented above was taken from a report in the Hamilton News..

What I did was to cut and paste the text of the report into my editor and proceed to change some of the words and names. It's actually a technique I frequently use when reading any alleged "news" from the legacy media. It's one of my analytical tools. I find it very handy in determining whether those advocating a given position on an issue do so out of adherance to certain principles, or merely out of political opportunism. Bureucrats and politicians never get a good score, in my mind.

Imagine this report,

Mr. Trump told the woman at the time, “I’m sorry. If I had known you were reporting for a national paper, I never would have been so forward.”

In other words, "if I had misjudged your potential leverage, given our obvious power differential," I would have pretended to be someone else.

Did Trump really say that?

Ask your friends.

Comparing the way politicians dealt with the Uber issue gave me an idea as to how Hamilton's beleaguered pot dealers could circumvent the politicians and their "principles."

Get an APP.

Get an APP.

Instead of having 30 or 40 physically static dispensaries, which is so 19th century, consider "sharing" your pot. Bribe the city for a "ride-hailing" license ($50,000) and mobilize your stores. Overnight, your 30 or 40 easily raidable dispensaries could turn into a thousand moving targets.

And if you get in early, you could turn yourselves into a $60 billion dollar company.

Problem

How do you actually get your legal product from A to B?

The first part is easy. B is the buyer. All they have to do is tap an app.

As to the supply side, off the top of my head, I can visualize two solutions at this point.

The first would be to engage the entrepreneurial skills of the army of private pot growers who were competently serving the citizens of Hamilton long before any retarded politician ever imagined he could erect a system of "responsible" and efficient pot distribution. All they would have to do to join the network would be to download an app for homegrown pot "sharers" who happened to own cars, or had friends who owned cars. The pot would be free. The customer would only pay for the delivery. The original grower would be awarded a "booking fee." (Nudge, nudge.)

Or....

The pot dispensaries could be located on the Indian reserves. Pot distribution could be modelled along the lines of the current tobacco sharing industry.

And it may come to that yet.

Even better would be a combination of the two.

"Sharing Posts" on the res, and a thousand and one immigrants and college students looking to pay off their student loans, or make a few bucks to buy beer, and thousands of quality private growers looking to reduce the odds that their homes will be confiscated in some bullshit forfeiture proceeding would pop up like weeds.

Capitalism, though hampered, will continue to do what it does best. Matching buyers with sellers.

Maybe this is what Marx really meant when he said,

"To each according to his need, and from each according to his ability."


Fucking hilarious!

I kept imagining I was reading something from Monty Python.

"Germany entices illegal migrants to leave with bribes — free rent for a year back home".

( https://nationalpost.com/news/world/germany-entices-illegal-migrants-to-leave-with-bribes-free-rent-for-a-year-at-home )

Friday, December 28, 2018

Smartphone Zombies

Something odd started happening this week.

I started to get an unusually high number of "friend" requests on Facebook.

Normally, I get two or three requests a week, usually from people who portray themselves as supermodel beauties with an extremely short timeline, and a birthplace and current location separated by about a third of a globe. I delete them and report them as spam, after I look at the pictures.

But most of the requests I have received recently have been from people with yellow vest stuff in their profiles, or hilarious photos of Justin Trudeau clowning around while serious shit is happening.

Anyway, along with all of the "friend" requests, my smartphone started beeping to the point of annoyance. (I had to correct that from "slamrphone." Maybe I'm getting too old for this shit.) So I decided to fish around in the settings to turn off notifications from Facebook. I found the right page and turned Facebook notifications off.

You probably already know what happened next. The phone kept on beeping at me with Facebook "friend" request notifications.

Given that I don't use Facebook at all on my spa... smartphone, I decided I would just delete the app altogether and find peace. Well, guess what? There was no "uninstall" option for Facebook. I selected "force stop" instead.

"Got you now!" I thought, quite satisfied with myself. Peace at last.

Like fuck it was. The phone kept on beeping.

"I'll show you" I said to the phone. "I'll do a factory reset!"

By this point, I was a bit angry. You should never act on impulse when you're angry. I was like mayor Eisenberg trying to kill a fly in his office, wait... no that was Heisenberg trying to kill a fly in his lab.

You end up doing stupid shit. Like clicking on "accept" when you get to the warning about all of your stored data being erased. I gave it a quick thought. "Naw, there's nothing really important on here." My main use of the phone is as a phone, and a little bit of texting. So I accepted.

Two seconds later I realized that all of my phone numbers were stored on the phone. It's a good thing I wrote most of them down in my password book. "Password book." That, in itself, is significant. I used to have a phone book. Now I have a password book.

That got me to thinking about back in the day, and how I used to have a bunch of phone numbers memorized. These days, I don't even know my own home phone number. It too was stored on the phone. Think about how weird it feels when you go for a blood test or something and the nurse asks you if your phone number is still 905-388-3010 and your answer is, "I don't know." It's not because of Altzheimer's. Or it's a form of early-onset Altzheimer's wrought by the very things I am writing about here.

Here's another angle. I can still remember some phone numbers from when I was back in high school. (68-74.)

  • The Krawecs - 385-1332
  • The Evans's - 383-8638
  • Home - 388-3010
  • Yellow Cab - 522-3535

Today, I only have four numbers memorized. I know my own cell number, and the home number I had fifteen years ago. I also know 911 and the number for Yellow Cab - now Hamilton Cab.

Isn't that pathetic? Talk about learned helplessness. Or conditioned helplessness.

So anyway, when the smartphone booted up I opted not to import my Google settings and just keep it to the basics. It did not escape my notice, that if I wanted to download any apps, I would not be able to access the Google Store without a Google account. That's when I realized that if I want to keep recording my phone calls, and using my smartphone as an egg timer that I would have to sign in to Google. So maybe I am not the buckskin-wearing, mountain-dwelling, libertarian purist I had imagined myself to be.

All of this reminds me of something I read on a washroom stall wall back when I worked at Westinghouse in the 70's. It said something like,

"If, in the end it is said,
that man shall lose his most valuable possession,
he will grab his cock and lose his mind."

Sounds dated in this age of smartphone addiction, don't it? He's losing his mind alright, but it ain't his cock he's holding on to.

I'll end my diatribe here. I know I have barely scratched the surface of the dangers of unthinking, maniacal acceptance of virtual living.

Final Note

Once you have acquired a certain perspective, your emotional response to the following photo might be similar to the one you would have if it were a photo of people eating broken glass.


Digital Drug Epidemic: 3 Concerning Long-Term Affects


TOP 5 WORST Things Trudeau Has Done As Prime Minister

Tuesday, December 18, 2018

97% of Scientists Agree that the Earth is Flat

Or so one would have to conclude based upon the reasoning demonstrated in the video embedded below.

But first, let's look at what the presenter has to say,

"First, you identify the 'experts.'

In this case, the 'experts' are thousands of scientists who study climate and publish their work in peer-reviewed journals.

Peer review means that every finding that's published is analyzed by people working in the same field, people who really know what they are talking about. [I.E. 'experts.' Or scientists who don't question the official theory and end up being de-funded or driving cabs.]

It's not flawless.

Mistakes occasionally happen, but this system is built to correct those mistakes, [by de-funding and cab driving] and it's by far the best process humans have ever come up with for doing good [political] science.

Once we find this [surviving] group of experts, we analyze their opinion: for or against a particular idea.

Sometimes this is done by studying whatever scientists have written in their papers.

Other times scientists are surveyed directly.

This can even be done by listening to what scientists say in public."

It is almost never done by analyzing how much their careers and incomes and government grants depend upon having certain views.

Here's the good part,

"Now some scientists don't express an opinion either way.

They're not included in the analysis.

Consensus is the fraction (italics - mine) of those who support an idea divided by the sum of those who support plus those who reject the idea.

All these different methods have ended up with the same conclusion. [No shit!] The people who know the most almost universally agree about what's causing global warming."

It goes on to argue that those 'experts' who don't state their agreement with the politically desired conclusion can be included in the 97% consensus, without explicitly agreeing with it just because the "science is already settled." How convenient.

And so, I believe it could be similarly argued:

100% of all scientists agree that the earth is flat. And it's a very strange claim to make, that any scientist who doesn't write "I believe that the earth is flat" is actually uncertain, or doesn't believe that the earth is flat.

Not a controversial idea today but before the 1960s and 1970s, most scientists had not accepted the idea of a flat earth for about 2,000 years. Prove me wrong.

Researchers looked at recent geology papers using the same criteria the critics of flat earth theory should be using on the capitalism-induced spherical earth dogma: That any paper that doesn't explicitly state that "the earth is flat" should be counted as uncertain or, or as rejecting flat earth theory.

Some say not giving a position on the flat earth theory is exactly what you would expect from scientists who agree that something's basically settled, like how physicists don't write, "God created the heavens and the earth in seven days" in every single paper, that Justin Trudeau is a genius, that gravity is a crisis of capitalism due to air travel and tall buildings, or that Donald Trump is following orders from Vladimir Putin. They're accepted as true.

And since, the acceptance of flat earth theory isn't explicitly stated in 97% of the scientific papers, the scientific "consensus" on the earth being flat is pretty near 97%.

This is the main reason why western countries need to import many millions of people from the third world. If the weight of people becomes too high in some corners of the world, the earth could capsize and we would all fall off. (See - gravity.)


On the claim that "there are people out there who spend a lot of money and effort manufacturing doubt." Well, that's nothing compared to the amount of money that is spent on promoting the climate change scam.

According to Marc Morano, global warming promoters receive "3,500 times as much money as anything offered to skeptics." (Page 241 - The Politically Incorrect Guide to Climate Change.)


At first I was going to use man-made tectonic plate shifting, with its attendant demands for the cessation of all mining and drilling, as my comparison, instead of flat earth theory, but decided to research whether the hoaxers had already discovered this angle as a Plan B, should the climate hoax finally be exposed.

Unsurprisingly, I discovered that earthquakes, tsunamis, and tectonic plate shifting were already being blamed on human activity. (Mining, drilling, and fracking etc. I.E. - mostly capitalism and prosperity.)

Newsweek.

National Geographic.

And this one, which I found most enjoyable of all of them all, not least for the comments that readers left. (eg. tax the water!)


Other Resources

What is a ‘climate scientist’?

97% "Consensus" (Marc Morano)


Sunday, December 16, 2018

These guys are obviously a couple of jack-asses. But some of their techniques are interesting. I like the "gravity bong." I use a similar technology, though mine doesn't require a jug full of water, and it gives the user some measure of latitude as to the desired rate of consumption.



Friday, December 14, 2018

China’s "Social Credit System" Has Caused More Than Just Public Shaming ...

Isn't this just fucking great? Cashless society, anyone? Uber? Self-driving cars? Are you shitting me? Global Migration pact? Global warming?



Wednesday, December 12, 2018

What I would do if I were boss of the world?

If I actually had a choice, being that I live in Canada, and so far as I know, if I wish to subscribe to just one cable TV channel, that choice remains unavailable to me, even though I don't doubt that the satisfaction of my desire is entirely, technically possible, I know it is politically impossible.

I leave it to more detail-oriented people to correct me if I am wrong, but my impression is that all cable TV subscription packages in Canada are subject to CRTC regulations. Therefore, FOX NEWS NETWORK is off the table, unless I wish to also pay for a package... well a basic package full of crap, after which I can choose one or more other crap packages, in the hope that one of these crap packages will contain the aforementioned network.

Anyone who knows me knows that I am not a complainer. But the idea that I should pay for twenty or thirty absolutely boring, or useless, or offensive government-backed propaganda channels (like the CBC) before I am allowed to watch FOX NEWS strikes me as being absolute BULLSHIT.

And the irony is, I am not even a big fan of FOX NEWS. When it comes right down to it, there is only one nightly program on FOX NEWS that I regularly watch. And I watch it on YouTube.

There is nothing I like better than asking questions. Well, actually there is one thing I like better than asking questions.

Getting answers.

And if I can't get answers, I'm more than happy to settle for the kinds of people that are, at least, asking the same questions.

So, of course, I develop respect for those who come up with the same questions as I ask. And by paying attention the people who are asking the same questions as me, I have come to discover that the odds of finding, at least, some of the answers to my questions, greatly increases if I follow those people who are asking the same types of questions. (Duh!)

I have to admit that it rather freaks me out, when the Table of the Contents, for the thoughts that flow through my mind during each day, ends up being the same series of matters that are addressed at the end of each of those days, by my favourite pundits!

It's almost as if we are all a bunch of mind-controlled robots, being switched on and off at the whims of a bunch of KKK members and "far-right" extremists.

Or it could be that we are thinking human beings following the circuitry of logic.

Anyone who is familiar with the type of stuff I blog about, or "share," or Tweet, already knows exactly how my mind works. (As do Google and Facebook, etc. And they are making great strides, or so I hear, in knowing exactly what I think before I actually think it! Just look at the ads they serve up. The circuitry of logic. A double-edged sword.)

Fuck me.

So back to my original question. What would I do if I were the boss of the world?

I would allow the public to subscribe to as little as ONE CABLE channel if that is all they really desire. And I would charge them ONLY the relevant costs for that channel. Say, $10.00 a month for "basic cable" (I.E. - infrastucture) service, and an additional $2.00 per month for each channel they choose to subscribe to.

And if such a regime were, in fact, in place at this time, my monthly cable TV bill would be only $12.00. That would include the basic $10.00 infrastructure charge, and the $2.00 for the FOX NEWS channel.

I would even pay the $2.00 fee just for the Tucker Carlson show, for reasons stated above.

It would sure beat my nightly searches for the latest Tucker episode. In its entirety.

And I don't know about you, but if I had any choice into how $600 million dollars of my money were going to be spent upon media outlets that espouse my point of view I would certainly allocate some of those funds to the Tucker Carlson Show.


The fact that the version of Tucker I have included below appears to be incomplete only adds to my confidence that, if given a choice by my Gov. Inc. overmasters, I would be gladly willing to pay the $12.00 monthly fee to get the whole product without having to fish around for it every night.


Tempo