Monday, September 19, 2022

THE REAL ALEX JONES | PART 1

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Saturday, September 10, 2022

A Potentially Harmful Link

It's been quite a while since I joined a Facebook group where participants who believed they, or their loved ones, had been injured by the mRNA vaccines would relay their experiences. I would browse through the feed to see what they were reporting. It didn't take long, perhaps a week, before Facebook erased that group.

Because of that, and other sleazy tactics employed by behind-the-scenes Facebook censors, I stopped using Facebook last May. Its prior usefulness as an information and networking tool had been completely gutted. I still use the messenger app to keep in touch with some people. My last post was on May 19, 2022.

I still use Twitter as an information source, and to blow off steam. Where Facebook uses a sledge hammer to suppress speech, Twitter has a lighter touch. But there are some things Twitter just doesn't want its users to see. Keep in mind the fact that governments in the West fully intend to codify this censorship into law.

This afternoon, I tried to post the story about Maddie de Garay on Twitter. It didn't work.

Here is the "potentially harmful" link.

Rigged: Pfizer Trial Hid Injuries, Maddie's Story

Click on it, if you dare.

Update Sept. 11, 2022: I just received a message telling me the above link is now behind a paywall. If you encounter the same problem, check here.

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Monday, August 8, 2022

#GetVaccinatedGetBoosted

At first, we were told that if we got vaccinated with the mRNA shots, we would neither get COVID-19, nor spread it to grandma.

Then we were told that no one ever promised we would not catch or spread COVID-19. They insisted that from the beginning they only said that the mRNA shots would reduce illness and death from the virus. If your memory told you different, you were branded as an anti-science, racist, misogynistic knuckle-dragging conspiracy theorist with inappropriate views.

When people started posting screenshots from the Ontario COVID-19 website (https://covid-19.ontario.ca/data) showing large numbers of "fully vaccinated" patients in the hospitals and ICUs, they called you innumerate. They even had a clever Venn diagram to illustrate your innumeracy.

It was a strong argument back on November 8, 2021, when only 21% of the people in the ICUs with COVID-19 were "fully vaccinated."


[click on images for larger image view]

But if you were a regular visitor to the website, as I was, you would notice something weird happening. The proportion of "fully vaccinated" patients in both the hospitals and ICUs kept creeping higher. (“It creeps,” Watson warns.)

By June 8, 2022, 81% of Ontarians in the ICUs were classified as "fully vaccinated," while 82.3% of the Ontario population were now "fully vaccinated." This inconvenient data kind of detonated the Venn diagram argument. Now, the proportion of ICU patients was roughly equal to the proportion of people in the entire population who had been vaccinated.

By gosh! By golly! What might this chart look like in another month or so? (“It creeps,” Watson warns.)

Well, the casual visitor to the Ontario COVID-19 website (https://covid-19.ontario.ca/data) would never know, because, the last time the page was ever updated was on June 10, 2022, followed by an announcement:

"WTF???" I wondered. Where would I get these numbers and charts now?

The announcement referred visitors to https://data.ontario.ca/en/dataset?groups=2019-novel-coronavirus or this page, neither of which contains the charts and graphs in the same easily accessible format as the pre-June 10 pages.

Why was this done?

Now, let me say that I have always placed great trust in the veracity of information coming from governments at every level, so I was certain there was a perfectly reasonable explanation for the sudden disappearance of these illuminating charts.

A suspiciously-minded, anti-science, racist, misogynistic, knuckle-dragging conspiracy theorist with inappropriate views might come up with an altogether different explanation of why this significant change was made.

They would say the data was following a trajectory that directly contradicted the official, science-following narrative. Maybe it was creeping in a direction that would seriously embarrass the politicians and their "experts," along with the Junk News media? Possibly even the most compliant normies would start to ask inconvenient, racist, or inappropriate questions?

Like, perhaps these vaccines were a massive failure?

Yet we are still deluged with "experts" in social media and on the Junk News purveyors urging us to get fourth, fifth, and how many more jabs?

And there is this.

Here is a graph showing infection rates in Ontario as of June 8, 2022,

As of June 7, 2022, there were 3.49 (per 100k) "not fully vaccinated" cases, 2.86 (per 100k) "fully vaccinated" cases, and a whopping 6.6 (per 100k) "vaccinated with booster dose" cases. The boosted population appeared to be getting infected at twice the rate of the disease-carrying unvaccinated! Where was this data going to creep to from here? I don't know, because that was the last graph that https://data.ontario.ca/en/dataset?groups=2019-novel-coronavirus would publish.

I fished around a bit on the page that replaced that one, downloaded one of the CSV files, and imported into a spreadsheet back on July 9, 2022. This is what my chart looked like,

It looked like the infection rate for the people who had been boosted was getting worse.

Recently, there has been a lot of debate in the Twitterverse about death rates between unvaxxed and vaxxed. Focusing only on the comparison between unvaxxed and boosted, I wondered if there might be a similar creeping trend in mortality as is seen in the infection curve.

So, today, I went through the same bullshit exercise and downloaded the CSV file from Deaths Involving COVID-19 by Vaccination Status. I sorted the data to graph the "all ages" deaths.

This is what that graph looks like now,

Note: My graph covers the short period from June 1, 2022 to Audust 4, 2022 so that recent progress would be easier to see.

If you can see what I see here, then you must be an anti-science, racist, misogynistic, knuckle-dragging conspiracy theorist with inappropriate views.

This segment of an interview between Russian KGB defector, Yuri Bezmenov, and Edward G. Griffin back in 1984, reveals how absolutely the Soviet seeds worked, not just in the United State, but all over the West.

Also, it would be very well worth your time, if you are at all curious about what is going on today, and perhaps more importantly, why, I highly recommend you watch the whole interview, before YouTube takes it down. Don't worry if they do. I have a backup. It might be a while before the YouTube censors grasp just how powerful this interview is. They're not the sharpest pencils in the case.

I saw it coming.

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Friday, August 5, 2022

I Saw it Coming

April 18, 2022

The anecdotal evidence is starting to roll in. I knew this was going to happen. That is why I get pissed off when some supermarket Nazi tells me it's all about "saving lives."

I can't say I have been strongly affected by this insanity. Yet. I've had a doctor's appointment, a physiotherapy session, and a dental appointment canceled because of it, but none of my issues were critical.

But I visualize a spectrum of conditions, from mild to severe. And though I don't have any numbers to support it, I am certain that people on the extreme margins are dying because of the delays, disruptions, and cancellations. NOT because of the virus. And there is no scoreboard for them. They go down the memory hole. They don't have an entry on the balance sheet.

I have seen two reports of teenaged girls who have committed suicide over the fear and social isolation wrought by the media/government exploitation of this flu variant. Ron Paul mentioned in his Liberty Report an old guy who delayed going to the hospital because of the chaos surrounding the panic, and instead, died.

Last night, while talking to a friend on the phone, he told me about a friend of his whose wife was feeling quite ill on the weekend but delayed a trip to the hospital because she was afraid of delays, disruptions, or refusal of care due to the CoronaPanic. Maybe her fears were exaggerated. Can you blame her?

She died on Sunday. Sixty-four years old.

My friend remarked, wryly, "They'll probably write her up as a victim of COVID-19."

"Never let a good virus go to waste."

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Monday, August 1, 2022

Green "apartment" for rent for $550 in Hamilton

Check out this July 30, 2022 Spectator report, ‘Prison cell’-sized apartment for rent for $550 in Hamilton

The ever-vigilant observer of contemporary madness, KK, sent me the link to that report along with the comment, "At least it has a window," which got me thinking about what turned into this short essay.

===

A window! Well, that is clearly an insult to anyone who can't afford to have a window. In fact, if I were in charge, I would immediately act to ban windows in all dwellings in the name of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Or better yet, why not start taxing windows? If someone is rich enough to afford a window, then they should be taxed.

Seriously though, taxing windows is not a new idea. I read a book years ago called For Good and Evil: The Impact of Taxes on the Course of Civilization by Charles Adams.

There was one story about how they used to tax houses by the number of windows they had. Some absurdities, like houses without windows, resulted. See here also.

One of the more interesting stories explained why newspapers have such big pages. At one time they were taxed by the number of pages. In part, this contributed to the incentive make the pages bigger.


[source]

I always found reading newspapers a real hassle, especially on a bus or in a crowded waiting room, or in any other place where you couldn't lay it out on the table. And forget about reading one on a park bench on a windy day, though on less windy days they could come in handy as a covering for those sleeping on park benches because they could not afford to rent one of those luxurious $550 Greta Thunberg suites. My old man used to read the paper while lying on the living room carpet. Childhood memories, ey?

Side Story

About six years ago I got a call from the Hamilton Spectator. The woman wanted to sell me a subscription. I was going to tell her "I don't read the Spectator," but she interrupted me on the third word with, "Oh! You don't read?"

I thought that was a clever and well-timed bit of psychological manipulation, but rather than becoming defensive, I simply agreed with her. "That's right. I don't read." Then, thinking of Chauncey Gardiner, I added, "I just watch TV."

That was pretty much the end of the conversation. She used a smart tactic, but also one of the few times I was able to think on my feet quickly enough to detonate her hook. If she had pressed, I would have asked how much The Spectator would pay me to consume their Junk News product.

Ridiculous newspaper page sizes are thus just another example of things that don't make sense until you trace the origins back to some government initiative.

Whenever I see something really retarded going on, like Hamilton's pro-idling, fuel-wasting, tax-guzzling, anti-car street policies, disgustingly crowded hospitals, twenty taxis queued for trips and blocking traffic on King St, or soon-to-be fashionable bathroom apartments, my default explanation is that it has a political cause unless there is some acute natural cause such as a volcanic eruption, earthquake, tornado, or deadly pandemic. Granted, most destructive laws and mandates don't originate solely in the legislatures. They originate from the confluence of labor-shirking politicians and their enablers in the broader government sector, I.E. - subsidized media, entertainment, and academia.

And, by "deadly pandemic," I mean a real pandemic, like the Spanish Flu, or the Black Plague, not the stupidity pandemic we have been living through for two plus years now. An alien visitor arriving in March of 2020, upon witnessing the ridiculous behavior of consumers, would have immediately, and wrongly, concluded we were in the middle of a severe dysentery pandemic.

After a few more years of building back better in response to the COVID-19 panic, and the increasingly absurd climate hoax, be prepared for bathroom-sized apartments to become the norm.

You will own nothing and you will be happy.

Speaking of being happy with sustainable living, while attending Mohawk College back in 1983, I was renting a bachelor apartment at the Mountainview - 325 James St. S., for $189 per month. It had a large walk-in closet. One day my lab partner was complaining about the room he was renting on West 2nd. St. near Brucedale. The landlady was a real Nazi. She forced him to do chores in addition to his rent.

One day at the lunch table he complained of having forgotten to take the garbage out. After the truck had already passed the house, the landlady ordered him to chase after the truck with two bags of garbage. One of the bags broke, splattering its contents on the street. After telling us his tale of woe, one of our classmates quipped, "Sure! Jump right in!"

Seeing an opportunity to act like a true liberal, doing well while doing good, I offered to rent him my closet for $100 per month, which he happily accepted. He took some ribbing from our classmates over this arrangement.

A while later, while gathered at the lunch table in the cafeteria, the same guy who made the Glad Garbage Bag commercial quip noticed a discarded coat hanger on the floor. He picked it up and waved it at my lab partner.

"Does this remind you of anything?"

Did you happen to catch that manipulative trick CHCH news pulled the other night? In their report, "Canadian ancestors of slaves vow to fight any new growth of racism or white supremacy in the country." Here is the segment containing their sleazy trick:

This type of Junk News manipulation of the bovine mass mind is specifically designed for the typical somnambulistic CHCH viewer. You know who I mean. The kind of person who, six months or so ago would have told you that getting an mRNA shot doesn't just protect you, but protects the people around you, and summarily dismissing your claim that the vaccinated were carrying as high or higher a viral load than the unvaccinated as "just not true." And who, if reminded of their confident Junk Belief today, would swear up and down that they never made such preposterous claim. "The vaccines were never meant to prevent transmission!"

The world has become such a clown show that I would hardly be surprised if the next commonly held Junk Belief will be, "The vaccines were never meant to prevent severe illness or death!"

It's subliminal. And it works. It's why we have clowns like Justin Trudeau and Jagmeet Singh ruining the country.

Following up the next day, CHCH reported, "Dozens of people were at Lakeside Park in Port Dalhousie to celebrate Emancipation Day."

Yes. "Dozens," though, from the video it appears that some of those dozens simply showed up to enjoy the beach.


To celebrate Emancipation Day, I took a short walk around Hamilton's amazing core. Local politicians have been "fixing" Hamilton's core for as long as I can remember. Just like they "fixed" the cab business. Given such staggering success, how can you doubt that politicians have rheostatic control of Earth's climate?

Progress to Date

A sustainable homeless camp on Rebecca St, between John and Catharine. When I stopped to snap this photo, it could smell the camp from the street. It was not a pleasant smell. It was a pungent mixture of sewage and decomp. I don't blame these people for their plight. They are only living within their means in a country where bubble economics and mass immigration have made affordable housing inaccessible to anyone who can't afford to rent a bathroom.<sic>

Finally, a reminder of what Hamilton's core used to be like before woke politicians engaged in "fixing it."

Given enough time, this vestige of Hamilton's past will also be "fixed," no doubt in pursuit of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, or to save the planet.

Want a Second Opinion?

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Thursday, July 28, 2022

Accessibility is Not a "Right"

Accessibility is not a Right


 
30 October, 2009


 
Sorry but, in my opinion, if I am still allowed to have one not pre-approved by the Canadian Human Rights Commission, Accessibility is Not a Right.


 
I know, I know. I only say this because I am an evil, selfish, mean spirited person who does not care about those who are disabled. Ok, so let me just say I am guilty as charged.... so don't bother with that reproach.


 
Nor will you gain any traction by asking me to hypothesize about whether my opinion would differ were anyone I love disabled.


 
I thought I should get that out of the way because I have no doubt that my opposition to any by-law mandating wheelchair accessible taxis will result in a deluge of such accusations.


 
Now, for anyone willing to listen, I would like to provide a shortlist of human rights as I see them.


 

  • The right to life.
  • The right to liberty.
  • The right to pursue happiness.
  • The right to think, and the right to say what is on my mind. (Freedom of speech.)
  • The right to own property. (Seriously, if you can't own what is yours.... you have no freedom.)
  • The right to earn a living.
  • The right to say, "No."
  • The right to be left alone.


 
I have a personal obsession. I hate debt. I once got in over my head with credit cards. I hated it.


 
So finally, I resorted to extreme measures to get out of debt. I moved out of my apartment and lived in a tent for a while. I also borrowed my dad's van and slept in it at the side of the road. No doubt my co-workers thought I was some kind of kook.


 
What? Me a kook?


 
Well, sort of I guess.... especially when it comes to my inability to recognize the official truth when I see it.


 
Anyway, back to my own personal debt story.....


 
To make a long story short.... I cut my living expenses to the bone in order to pay off my debts. In the end I was successfull.


 
To this day, I have managed to avoid debt. I have contracts for hydro and phone and internet. I entered into those contracts voluntarily... and I pay my bills every month. I feel an obligation.


 
Today, I live debt free.


 
And I feel pretty good about it.


 
That is, I felt pretty good about it... until I found out that I have another debt, as yet, unpaid.


 
According to the Ministry of Transportation (Ontario).... accessible transportation is a human right.


 
Which means to me, since I am in the transportation business, that I am not free of debt.


 
I owe something to a certain group of citizens who, based upon certain criterion, are officially considered to be, disabled.


 
At our meeting of the Taxi Advisory Committee meeting on October 20 (2009) a motion was put forward by the de-facto chairman of the committee: "Should 100% of Hamilton taxis be forced (at some unspecified future date,) to become accessible?" (I.E. wheelchair vans.)


 
Immediately one of the committee members blurted out, "Well, accessibilty is a right, not a privilege."


 
It was said with such certitute, such moral authority.... such obvious lack of critical thought. It was almost biblical in it's certainty.


 
But in Canadian society these days we all know how to spout the popular line. We all know the answers that will draw minimum criticism.


 
Well, of course, I was one member of the committee who was not so ready to jump on this morally self-congratulatory bandwagon.


 
When it came to a show of hands I did a quick inventory of the 7 (as opposed to 2) yes votes.... the yes votes, were dominated by committee members who either would expect to benefit personally (or politically) from such a mandate and those for whom such a mandate would not represent any personal financial commitment and those who seemed not to really understand the motion(!).


 
It ought to go without saying that the two "no," votes came from members who understood they were the ones who were being "asked," to provide the means for the realization of said mandate - and one member who has lot's of experience recognizing counterfeit "rights," for exactly what they are: state mandated privileges or entitlements, designed to benefit one group of citizens at the expense of another.


 

Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well armed sheep contesting the vote. -- Unknown author. Often attributed to Ben Franklin or James Bovard.


 
And that my friends, is how many Canadians find themselves in debt... not through any personal contract or commitment, but by a vote of nine people in a committee.


 
How secure does your freedom feel now, knowing that government committees are voting on saddling you with new debts you never thought you owed?


 
Who shall suffer most from this new, government imposed debt obligation?


 
Well....


 
A lot of cab drivers in Hamilton own their cabs but "lease" their plates. Few of them, I suspect, make $40,000 a year. If the city mandates that all taxicabs be "accessible," then these lessees shall have to fork out about $40,000 (the rumoured price of an accessible vehicle,) instead of the $5,000 currently spent on used police cars.


 
It doesn't really matter whether these lessees are given one year, or fifteen years to comply. The $35,000 difference represents a year's worth (probably much more) of labour that these happless citizens will be forced to forego because the disabled, (but not they,) have "rights."


 
Let's consider the brief list of rights I listed above in light of the claim that accessible transportation is a human right.


 
From the point of view of the cab driver, lessee, owner.......


 
They do not have the right to life. Well not all of their life because now, as a result of a pronouncement from the Ministry of Transportation... ( and a vote of the Taxi Advisory Committee,) part of their life has to be allocated to accomodating the disabled.


 
They do not have the right to liberty. The government is now telling them what to do ( purchase wheelchair vans) ... or else(!)... their license and their means of earning a living will be revoked.


 
They do not have the right to pursue happiness. Their right to pursuit of happiness has been trumped by the "right of accessible transportation." The happiness of influential lobby groups must be accommodated before any of their efforts be allocated to their own pursuit of happiness... (well, awe shucks... pursuit of happiness is an American idea and thus carries no weight in Canada.)


 
The right to own property. Well, we have all heard the saying, "property is theft," so if you think you own it, all it means is that you stole it.... and it really belongs to someone else -- you know .. that special, rights endowed, someone who didn't pay for it.


 
So now, we in the cab business find we are indebted to the disabled community. Property is theft. So, I suppose is mobility.


 
Those of us who have mobility, like those of us who have property, have stolen it... and it is time for us to pay it back.


 

"I stole this head, these hands, this body and ran off with them." -- Frederick Douglas


 
The right to earn a living. This right is going to be cancelled by the government. First, you provide accessible transportation. After that, you can concern yourself with making a living. Accessibility, is a "basic right." Your right to earn a living takes a back seat. (Sorry.)


 
The right to say, "No." Sorry again, accessible transportation is a basic right. You are not allowed to say "no." If you do, your license... your means of making a living, shall be revoked. (This is the price we pay so that politicians can pretend they "care." Does it start to feel like someone has a firm grip on your balls yet?)


 
The right to be left alone. He he. If you expect to make a living in this city, you're dreaming.


 
Years ago, my notion of human rights was summed up by the novelist Ayn Rand. She wrote,


 


 
Any alleged "right" of one man, which necessitates the violation of the rights of another, is not and cannot be a right.


 
So much for the "right," to accessible transportation.


 
Compassion is one thing. Statist mandates and phony compassion are quite another.


 


 
"A liberal is a guy who cares so much he would give a poor man the shirt off someone else's back."


 
Almost fifty years ago the U.S. Democratic party was not so progressive... they forgot to include the right to accessible transportation. (and ... not to be offended by free speech, and, and ..... internet access(!), etc. etc.)


 
From "Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal," by Ayn Rand.....


 
"Bear clearly in mind the meaning of the concept of rights when you read the list which the [Democratic platform of 1960] offere[d]:

  1. The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;
  2. The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;
  3. The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;
  4. The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;
  5. The right of every family to a decent home;
  6. The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;
  7. The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;
  8. The right to a good education.


 
A single question added to each of the above eight clauses would make the issue clear. At whose expense?"


 

"What good fortune for governments that the people do not think."


 
I will not attribute that last quote. If you are interested, Google it.


 


 


 

”The state is that fictitious entity by which everyone attempts to live at the expense of everyone else.” – Frederic Bastiat


 
On 22 October, 2009, during the taxi advisory committee meeting a motion was put forth: Should it be mandatory that Hamilton Taxi Cabs become 100% accessible at some unspecified future date?


 
Seven of the members voted yes.


 


 
In this country we used to have a saying, “Put your money where your mouth is.”


 
I would like to see that saying become popular again.


 
I think I have come up with a great way to reintroduce that question into Canadian political discussion. I would like to propose that the 100% accessibility motion be re-introduced at the next Taxi Advisory Committee meeting with one slight modification.


 
This time, I want the “Yes,” voters to put their money where their mouths are.


 
Now, it ought to be well understood, that those who voted “yes,” are deeply compassionate citizens of our great land. More to the point, those members who voted “yes,” have a special regard and concern for that segment of society who, through no fault of their own are unable to move about in a normal way.


 
All of my life I have been told that Canada, as opposed to our greedy cousins to the south, is a “Compassionate Society.”


 
The next Taxi Advisory Committee meeting will give seven Canadians the distinguished opportunity to stand up and show the whole world just how compassionate Canadians can be.


 
What I want to see at the next TAC meeting, is for the “yes,” voters to bring $1000 of their own money, put it down on the table, and pledge to donate their dollars toward the purchase of Hamilton's first Accessible Taxi under the mandate.


 
Then we will have a second vote. If the motion carries, we will know that this small group of compassionate Canadians are indeed willing to put their money where their mouth is.


 


 
I kind of doubt that a single member of the TAC will accept my challenge.


 
I am so confident of myself here that I will add this additional sweetener.... if the “yes,” voters put a kewl seven grand into the middle of that table, I will donate an additional fifty dollars to the noble cause.


 

Definition of a liberal: "Someone who cares so much he would give a poor man the shirt off someone else's back”


 
The ACPD Presentation to the Taxi Reform Subcommittee.


 
October 22, 2009


 
Two representatives of the Advisory Committee for Persons With Disabilities (ACPD) were present at the Taxi Reform Sub-Committee meeting on October 22, 2009.


 
During their presentation, they lambasted the Hamilton taxi industry for ignoring their, “rights.”


 
What rights you may ask? Well, the answer to that question ought to be pretty clear to anyone who has been paying attention.... they are referring to “rights,” that were generously dispensed upon them by a branch of government (do you see the irony in that? Government as a dispenser of “rights,” government who in the words of Ludwig von Mises.....


 

"The worst evils which mankind has ever had to endure were inflicted by bad governments. The state can be and has often been in the course of history the main source of mischief and disaster."


 
Mischief and disaster? How could that be? 180 or so million dead as a result of democide in the 20th century alone?


 
As I write, our trusted governments are all engaged in the debauchery of our currencies, stealing our savings through inflation.... too gutless to raise taxes to fund their grandiose schemes.... and all the while generously bestowing “rights,” upon various politically influential constituencies.


 


 
But I am getting carried away, sorry. According to the ACPD Presentation, “The ministry of Transportation states that access is NOT a privilege.”


 
No. It's not a privilege. It's a right.


 
Now that we know that access is a right, we have all the ammo we need to blast the Hamilton Taxi industry with its sorry record of human rights violations.


 
For example (according to the ACPD presentation): number of accessible taxis in Hamilton is zero accessible vans - operating as livery vehicles - vehicles being used that would not pass inspection - no 24-hour service - trips must be booked in advance - spontaneous trips rarely available- 2 providers of taxi-like service – WAVE -Blueline


 
Well, I am but a simple cab driver. If my years on the business have been dominated by a desire to make a living, to pay the rent and feed my kids, then I beg your forgiveness. I thought I was trying to make a living, I didn't realize I was violating your rights. (sorry)


 
In pursuit therefore of my own devilishly selfish interests, I forgot about you.


 
Would it make any difference to you, in pursuit of your “rights,” if I told you that, even those of us not confined to wheelchairs have problems too?


 
I suspect not. Politically granted “Rights,” reign supreme. Of what consequence are my meager needs?


 


 
With respect to the issue of the right to accessible transportation, as declared by well-paid politicians, I would like to draw your attention to one of the demands of the ACPD … “no additional fees for assistance.”


 
Well, those of us in the cab business understand well the additional effort and time required when accommodating the disabled. Your demand for,


 
“no additional fees for assistance.”


 
acknowledges that extra effort is required to ensure that your “rights ” are respected.


 
The question I have become accustomed to asking is, “At whose expense?”


 
I t makes me think of a very dear, sweet man I know... who is a cab driver. He is suffering right now. The business is down. He gets calls from home... the kids need milk and bread.... but, he is not free to respond to that need.... because he has been dispatched to transport a client who has “rights,” a client who requires assistance, a client who, as per demands of the ACPD, has a right to demand his compliance.... with “no additional fees for assistance.”


 
So it may take him an additional 15 minutes to “accommodate,” this person who has been endowed with “rights,” even though it will put him 4 or 5 spaces back in the queue for the next trip.


 
Well, the kids are just going to have to wait a little bit longer for their milk and bread.... well, because the disabled have “rights.”


 


 
I wrote something about fifteen years ago.


 
DARTS - A Truly Disabled Organization


 
My how government does grow!


 
I came across a newsletter recently that reminded me of something I had read many times, in one form or another in the libertarian literature, over the last twenty years. I dug through my little book collection and came up with the following, from "The Tyranny of the Status Quo" - by Milton and Rose Friedman (copyright 1984, 1983):


 
"The key characteristics of bureaucrats are these: first, they spend other people's money; second, they have a bottom line, a proof of success, that is very distant and difficult to define. Under those conditions, a major incentive for every bureaucrat is to become more powerful --and this is true whether the bureaucrat is dominated by broad and unselfish interests or by narrow and selfish interests. In either case, being more powerful will enable the bureaucrat to pursue those interests more effectively. In most cases, the way for a bureaucrat to become more powerful is to have more people under his or her control --to expand the scope of whatever piece of the gigantic governmental structure is that bureaucrat's domain."


 
Here's what I read that made me think of this. It pertains to the Disabled and Aged Regional Transit System of Hamilton-Wentworth. This is just one relatively small manifestation of the disease which afflicts this country:


 
A SPECIAL THANK YOU


 
Thirteen years ago, D.A.R.T.S. provided 90,000 trips to 1500 registered passengers using 16 vehicles and a staff of 25. The budget at that time was $700,000. This year D.A.R.T.S. has provided 525,000 trips to our 13,000 passengers using 45 vehicles, 35 minivans and taxis, and a $7,000,000 budget. D.A.R.T.S. has successfully accomplished this growth over the years under the leadership and guidance of our Executive Director,..." etc. etc.


 
-- from the newsletter 'On Target with D.A.R.T.S.' November 1993.


 
Based on the numbers for 1993, the average DARTS trip costs about $13.33. This is at least twice the average taxi fare for Hamilton. DARTS customers pay $1.70 per trip regardless of the length of that trip. Taxpayers pay the rest. In addition to the taxpayers being ripped off by this system, the artificially low fares are siphoning passengers away from the private (though regulated) taxi business which has already been devastated by the recession. Many of these ex-taxi patrons can easily afford taxi fare but choose instead to let their neighbors pay the bill. Who can blame them? They have learned, as increasing numbers of Canadians are learning...... in a cannibalistic system, it's 'eat or be eaten.'


 
I thought about this article when I got to the part in the list of demands by the ACPD that stated, with such unabashed moral authority,


 
“Taxis have had 27 years to figure out how to become accessible yet we have zero accessible taxis in Hamilton."


 
Yeah, well go figure ey? Why, or how, could you possibly expect the taxi business in this city to reconfigure itself into an organization geared to satisfying the needs of one of it's largest market segments when the government itself was at the root of that great big sucking sound?


 
In the 1970's taxis were the main source of accessible transportation. A huge chunk of our market was sucked away by D.A.R.T.S.


 
And now, you have the unmitigated audacity to admonish us for not responding to a market that was being driven out of existence by government competition?


 
Shame on you.


 


 

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Thursday, July 21, 2022

Heat

Get Ready for Climate Lockdowns

Boomers have the advantage of having "lived experience" with hot weather. I remember well, working in construction and factories in the 1970s before I ever had the luxury of air conditioning. Waking up in the morning already sweating, dreading another day of intense discomfort on the job. Showering but never quite able to dry off. Those born since about 1990 have been conditioned to think there was no such thing as heat waves, floods, forest fires, hurricanes, and tornadoes before 1988 as if those words had to be invented in the last thirty years to deal with the scourge of industrial capitalism and mass middle-class ease and comfort.

Khrushchev warned, "We will bury you," while bragging about the superiority of authoritarian collectivism. They didn't. In the end, the West decided to bury itself. Once it became all too obvious that the command economy couldn't hold a candle to free market capitalism, the authoritarian collectivists changed their strategy. Having lost the debate about raising the standard of living for the masses, they recycled themselves into climate alarmists. A high standard of living for the masses would doom the planet. Only the elites could have a high standard of living. The rest of us will have to ride bicycles, take public transit, and eat bugs.

A Device For Making The Crazy Crazier

If YouTube censors the above video, you can watch it here.

If the video above doesn't play, you can watch it here.

More Background

From February 2021.

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Health Crisis in Canada?

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