Thursday, June 30, 2011

Sour Grapes And The Literary Machine

And Joyce was a poor sick fucker who probably died with his balls somewhere up around his navel. None of that for me, thanks. 
Hunter S. Thompson, The Proud Highway, Letter to Lionel Olay, February 16,1962, p. 320

Merriam Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature is something that an avid reader and /or aspiring writer must have. It is a huge 1236 page monster of a book! Bet you can't read just one entry! The bright white coated clay paper and the clean design and typography are things that warm the Oracle of Ottawa's little literary heart,  the sheer heft of the thing brings total peace to any one with even a hint of a literary bent. At first glance and dive in it seems that everybody is here. But alas, no.

Gonzo but not forgotten!

The first expectation of missing entry was that of the great Canadian writers such as Margaret Atwood, and Timothy Findley, but much to my surprise they were included and with very flattering entries indeed. Then I thought I would get jiggy and looked up Joseph Hall and much to my surprise the good bishop got a full and respectful entry! Well! Nothing is perfect, so on to the entry of Harold Robbins, and was totally shocked that selling 750 million books does not get you remembered! If you have ever read A Stone For Danny Fisher
you start to wonder, if this isn't it, what is the Great American Novel! I read this work on the lower deck of a warship many, many years ago and it has always stayed in my memory. It dealt with as far as I can recollect, what is the American Dream? Why is it so easily obtainable by some and continues to be a cruel mirage to so many? That question is one that will keep you up at night or make you a novelist, both, that I have up to this point successfully avoided...
The Fox and the Grapes, Caxton 1448

Another shocking missed entry is that of Karl Marx! I mean what do you have to do to get into an encyclopedia? I mean is thing done by a jury or what? You mean to tell me that Capital and the Manifesto, the greatest political pamphlet of all time, is not considered literature? What is up with that? The Cold War ended decades ago, the Penguin Encyclopedia of English Literature had no problem finding Karl a couple of points of space... Geez!
Hunter S. Thompson

But alas Dear Reader it all gets even more shocking! And especially if you are an American! The great Doctor, Hunter Stockton Thompson is no where to found! On Wikipedia he gets over 130,000 hits a month! And yet there are five other minor Thompson's included! But yet, and this is real salt in the wound, Tom Wolfe, who by the way, gets less than 20,000 hits a month on Wikipedia, has a nice respectful entry! Now we all know that he coined the term New Journalism, but it would not even be remembered today if it wasn't for that book by Hunter about running amok in Las Vegas all those years ago, and yet that book is still in print and stocked at my local book retailer in Canada! Try to find a novel by Tom Wolfe!

But, sala...To obsess on the twist and perversity of history and the endings of the American Dream is not conducive to a long, rich, full life. "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly to the past." 
                              

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Sun News TV - Civil Service Reality Check -

The state of perpetual emptiness is, of course, very good for business. 
Lewis H. Lapham, Money And Class In America, Chapter 3, p. 59

One good thing about Sun News TV is that they never let the facts get in the way of a poor story. It was sometime on Tuesday afternoon and the big news was that 24 people at Public Works lost their jobs! We are well on the way to paying off the deficit! Oh man, and then the wailing really started! The incredible size of the civil service, it being beyond control! The astounding number of civil servants must be reduced, must be cut. I swear I could hear the long lost wail of Preston Manning, eeee-limmmm-aaannnn-ateee the deficit!

Well the Oracle of Ottawa perked up, perhaps the hapless hack of a guest had information, that the Oracle of Ottawa was not privy to! I must cover this breaking story like the Mint 400! But alas Dear Reader there was no new information! The guest haplessly babbled that there are over 420,000 civil servants in Canada! Now that includes everyone drawing a Federal pay cheque. From the Governor General down to the newest, ugliest, penis headed, private in boot camp of the Canadian Forces! Let us put that in perspective. There are at this very moment, about 35,000,000 Canadians. So 420,000 divided by 35,000,000, times one hundred, and that gives an astounding 1.20% of the Canadian population is involved in the administration and defense of the whole country of Canada!

Everyone showed up at the last Tory Convention!

Why if we keep up this pace, the great man Thomas Flanagan will be proved correct after all! We will not be able to decide anything, because there will be soon no one in charge! Sorry, as Prime Minister of Canada I regret to inform the Canadian people that I am going to have to fire myself.... God help us all! Good Night!! Of course this announcement will be done somewhere on the Sparks Street Mall on top of a wooden orange crate, as the former location of the Ottawa CBC is now a legalized rub parlour. And the door man looks really familiar!  Hmmmm.....

Meanwhile in other news! It is with the deepest regret that the great man in the present form of Theo Caldwell, is being deleted from Wikipedia, under speedy deletion! " Due to web and article content that does not credibly indicate the importance or significance of the subject! "  To add insult to injury, as to press time there have been no contests to this request. So I guess I was not the only one that thought... Breaking News! The 24 lost jobs at Public Works are now 12 lost jobs! Poor Krsita Erickson was so disappointed!


This is the way Liberty dies....

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

The Western Canadian Barley Teaser Rate

"a reasonable person's beliefs change according to the state of the persons knowledge."
Irving M. Copi, Carl Cohen, Introduction to Logic, 8th edition, p. 462

The Oracle of Ottawa does not know shit about farming! But he does know that although people may not always need oil and gas, they will always have to eat! People have always chided the Oracle of Ottawa for the "risk" he takes when picking and buying his own stocks... but when the Oracle of Ottawa contemplates the Western Canadian farmer planting his section in the springtime (One section = 640 acres = 1 square mile?) he realizes what risk is really all about! There have been times when the Western oil and gas producers have said "Let the Eastern bastards freeze in the dark!" But for the life of him, the Oracle of Ottawa cannot find a reference of any Western Canadian farmer ever saying " Let the Easterners starve in the dark!".

Real Power...

As stated in many earlier posts to this humble blog, the Oracle of Ottawa gets very nervous and alarmed when he see's venerable Canadian institutions come under attack and assault. The latest instance was just last week when the precedent was set by the Conservative government of employing "Final offer arbitration"
in the solution of large labour disputes. Totally irresponsible talk of changes to the Canadian Senate is absolute red meat to the base at home, but in reality, it is a reckless play with the fires of chaos. Another institution that has come under attack is the Canadian Wheat Board. Now even to an Ontario city slicker, this is scary talk.
More powerful than nuclear weapons?

When the Oracle of Ottawa hears the likes of Ezra Levant pinging off of the CWB on Sun News TV, you have to start to worry. Who is who lobbying for now? When you have a Prime Minister saying that Canada is going to be a "world power" and then threaten to close down the CWB you got to start wondering about imbalances on axis three and four... Canada is a G8 country. There is no way that we can field a million man army in the field like India or China can. But we can decide who gets to eat! That is more powerful then all the armies in the world! During the cold war this power of the grain bin allowed Canada to punch way beyond its reach. Why would we abolish the one true lever we as a nation  have in geopolitical world power?

Heavens knows there are a few irritants with the CWB. And these problems are very repairable. But the guy in southern Alberta that can truck his barley to a mill in the States and get "more" money is a compelling story. But what about the guy in the northern parts of the western provinces? Will that "teaser" barley price still stand up when the CWB is gone and you have to deal with Cargill, ADM, and Monsanto? Will it really? I doubt it!

Canadian Wheat Board, A global brand!

But you western farmers can prove this to yourself. Call your provincial MLA and ask him/her if the western provinces can buy or rather assume the CWB from the Federal government? They want to get rid of it don't they? Now call your Federal member of Parliament and ask the same question... Well go ahead... No answer, that is strange... Beware the the Barley Teaser Rate!

 
What else would you close with? All the best to the farmers out west.

Monday, June 27, 2011

India Is a Friend Of Canada...?

Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.
Karl Marx , Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right, Introduction..., p. 1 (1843)

India poses as the worlds largest democracy, the second most populated country, and has the third largest standing army on earth. It is riddled with corruption and hobbled by an ancient caste system. Capitalism can't seem to get past the tribal feudalism stage. That wouldn't be so bad, if it stayed in India. But if you live in a large Canadian urban center you soon realize how dangerous these primitive constructs can be to a modern western democracy. Now link that up with the hard right political views and the ever regular honour killings of certain Indian sects, exploited by a once virtually invisible hard right conservative government and the results could be an utter catastrophe for the future of Canada

Gateway To India...

India is also home to the second largest film industry on earth. As a citizen of Canada this was rudely brought  to my attention in the last month. As an ethnic group in Canada, East Indians amount to only a little over 3% of the entire population! Yet with the constant Bollywood media bombing that I and my fellow Canadians have been experiencing you would think that little India of Toronto had a larger population than that of the entire province of Quebec! This humble scribe of the virtual cloud was at a total loss of why the second largest film industry on earth would bring its award night to Canada? But upon scanning the dregs of my cable television offerings one could easily understand the reluctance of the so called Bollywood elite to risk showing off their success in old Bombay.

One could easily come to the correct solution of why this happens. You make a ton of money off of the misery of millions of people by regularly jacking them off, of their money, hopes, and dreams. The reason the Indian Film Industry does not hold its award night in India is that it has a paranoid nightmare of the masses finally cluing in and rising up. And besides that, Bombay is hot as hell and it smells really weird. Plus all these world junkets can be a great tax rip-off or rather tax deduction. Revenue India should investigate!

In the time of Karl Marx, religion was the opium of the oppressed people. In the India of today the opium of the people is the Bollywood film. For all its press, good and bad, Hollywood is the still the heart of cinema. One of the reasons for this is the incredible power of cinema to implement social change. This is even more pronounced in the Canadian and European film industries. Market and government driven. The main purpose of the Bollywood film is to prevent any social change from ever happening. The feudal interests must be protected at all costs, along with the insane rate of return from the said peasants!  Why the Indian film industry wasted their time and gold to party in Toronto has totally eluded me. We are wise to you guys, the T-shirt middlemen of the world!

Canada's deployment to Afghanistan is coming to its end. We and our Allies, the United States, and the various members of the European Union have pissed away much blood and treasure. With friends such as India we are all grateful that we don't have too many enemy's. Why is it that Canada had to lock and load to the farthest spot on earth from Canada, when our "good friend" of India was on the doorstep of this problem? Are not they more familiar with the situation in their own corner of the world? Why couldn't we have left it to India to sort this shit hole out? India has an Army of 1.3 million standing troops. Canada has a standing force of 67,000 some odd! Hey! What are friends for?  



No comment...



Sunday, June 26, 2011

Democracy Needs A Salary Cap

Paradox is the sharpest scalpel in the satchel of science. Nothing concentrates the mind as effectively, regardless of whether it pits two competing theories against each other, or theory against observation, or a compelling mathematical deduction against ordinary common sense. 
Hans Christian von Baeyer,  Information, The New Language of Science, p. 204

Some journalist I am! I couldn't even cover CPAC on television! Why the debate was so hypnotic that I just dropped the pen and closed the notebook and enjoyed. I will never be the Great Doctor. He could start the day with a six-pack, washed down with a 26 of Wild Turkey, three joints of hash, four amyls, six hits of acid,  a full breakfast and somehow could remember every word he ever said and the full conversations of every interview he ever conducted! But alas, at the end he couldn't read his own work, when invited to by Charlie Rose...
What is the new factor Comrade?

Earlier this week when the Canadian Minister of Labour tabled bill C-6 and mentioned the words " final offer arbitration " I damn near puked! I had heard these words before. This was an American thing and you don't hear too many people lining up to have a go with it! And later in the week, during the Great Debate that lasted 58 hours(!), The New Democrat Party made sure that everyone in Canada knew the origin and history of this process of doom! The NDP back bench is very deep in labour law and trade union history!

There was no way that any civil servant advising Lisa Raitt would have suggested such an incendiary process to deal with a labour dispute! So where the hell did this disaster of a game plan originate? After much thought and a few calls the Oracle of Ottawa has discovered the answer! Why the brilliant mind of Steve Harper! The avid hockey fan! They have final arbitration in the National Hockey League here in Canada and the United States! Now that certainly sheds the light of a class I super-nova on the whole matter.

We need an industry salary cap!
There was a litany of hand wringing by the most seasoned and experienced labour lawyers and union officials throughout Canada, all concluding that a major and most dangerous precedent had been set! And they have no idea how correct they are in that conclusion! But, the precedent has been set in the favor of labour! Yes indeed Dear Reader! Every dark cloud does have a silver lining! If the precedent has been set of using sports law in the field of labour law, I would like to be the first in print to remind the Honorable Minister of Labour
that sports law set the precedent of the SALARY CAP!

Jack Layton will get it done Comrade!

Now consider each major industrial group in Canada as an individual league... We will start at the top and work down just like the Conservative Party does... You will have the Crown Corporation League, consisting of all the Crown Corporations. Then you will have the Rail and Transport League, Then the Federal Civil Service League, The Provincial Civil Service League, The Power Utility's League... Do you see where this is going? Yes even the Banking and Financial Services League, The Major Manufacturing League...With a little unofficial "final arbitration" union style, we will set THE FACTOR. or the salary cap for the whole industry! Just like a sports team! No problem! The precedent has been set! The greatest gift to labour since the 40 hour five day work week!  Thank you Steve Harper and thank you Lisa Raitt!

Every country has its National Sport. In Canada we have ice hockey. The Americans have Major League Baseball. The United Kingdom has cricket... For example in Canada we will simply take the averaged difference of all the lowest paid NHL players and then divide that into the averaged difference of the highest paid NHL players! Ipso presto! You have your factor. We will do this at the end or beginning of each playing season! (Sure would make opening day more exciting wouldn't it?)  Say the factor is twenty. That simply means from now on no CEO of any industry in Canada can make more than twenty times the salary of his/her lowest paid player! (i.e. worker...) Is this brilliant or what? Why the implementation of sports law into labour law will allow everyone to further enjoy their respective National Games.

Dear God; Please send the NDP and The Oracle of Ottawa!!

Now all the data already exists in government labour departments and in labour organizations. Along with NDP labour legislation when they form the next government, and the proverbial army of actuary's all the details will be quickly and finally ironed out. Why, we will wonder, didn't any one ever think of this before? 

Look upon this as an analogy... The Canadian goalie is the NDP and the Canadian Worker... The other goalie represents the stupid Conservatives!!

Saturday, June 25, 2011

CPAC: "I just couldn't stop watching.."!

Universal labour is all scientific labour, all discovery and all invention.
Karl Marx, Das Kapital, Volume III,  Chapter V, p. 104

It is not often that the Oracle of Ottawa finds his local beer store empty on a Friday afternoon, at 4:00pm! I think that only happened twice before. The Great Ice Storm of 1998 and the Summit Hockey Series in 1972! But no one was watching the great debate on CPAC! Well that is what everybody said... But I would die to find out what CPAC's ratings were for the last couple of days! It was the greatest filibuster in Canadian history! Fifty eight hours straight on. The last minute wilder than the first minute! This great debate was also a landmark in Canadian history. For the first time in history anywhere in the world all the people watching the debate either on television or streaming feed on the inter-net could contact their favorite or un-favorite member in the House of Commons in real time! There were constant E-mails and Twitters of encouragement to all members in real time. The Oracle of Ottawa couldn't help remembering that night back in 1969 sitting in front of a black and white TV in Pembroke, Ontario a twelve year old kid watching in awe as a man walked on the moon for the first time! This great debate to me was as important and as historic!

The Conservatives got their fat lard arsed butts kicked and good! I am sure that the Labour Minister Lisa Raitt was warned by her civil servants that the original bill as written would start a firestorm. But, alas, to benefit from your Civil Servants, you must listen to them! Playing in the "big's" in Ottawa is a lot different than politics in the smoke of a Legion Branch somewhere in Cape Breton! The Oracle of Ottawa expects that she will be shuffled out of cabinet at the first opportunity...with the set up to be left under the bus, Conservative style!     
Lisa Raitt, Shaky, Scorched and Incompetent

Little Lisa thought that the NDP were a bunch of pink pussy's that would fold in an hour! Besides every one wants to go home right? The Conservatives all wanted to get their lard arses home. But the NDP caucus was full of labour lawyers, union bosses, social activists and other assorted "misfits" that have been dreaming of breaking the House of Commons debate record all their lives! I swear dear reader that each one of them, prayed to his/her God every night for years, nay decades, that they would be the one like Jimmy Stewart, in Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, that would pass out while having the floor! It was a grand event that the Oracle of Ottawa had the honor to witness!


All of the rural and ignorant hicks of the  Conservative Party have just been through the most intense three day seminar of Labour Law and History in modern times! Why by the end of it on Saturday evening Lisa Raitt was more withered and scorched then Elizabeth May! Who by the way, got in some mighty fine jabs and deadly one-liners! The people in Saanich - Gulf Islands have great reason to be proud of their member! A party of one who took it all the way! You Go Girl!!

Elizabeth May, A Moving and Noble Performance..

The most memorable performance, that will stay with the Oracle of Ottawa for ever was that of Yvon Godin!
This is the passion and commitment that the Oracle of Ottawa dreams of in his member of parliament! He flamed the Minister of Labour! He owned her! He schooled her, like she has never been schooled before! It was the finest most impassioned political oratory that the Oracle of Ottawa has ever witnessed! It was moving and correct! Mr. Godin is the veteran of 37 negotiated contracts! Damn! Fifty eight hours in the House of Commons is a piss in the park! Isn't anyone in the PMO's office doing their homework??

All in all it was a fine performance by the whole NDP caucus. They had the Tory's enraged, reeling and rocking backwards on their heels! Contrary to the Liberals, it is not hard to see where the real juice is!

Yvon "Jimmy" Godin, what the Oracle of Ottawa dreams of! The Tory's cringe in fear!

Thursday, June 23, 2011

Moore's Law And The Alberta Oil Sands

Do not think that what is hard for you to master is humanly impossible; but if a thing is humanly possible, consider it to be within your reach.
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, VI, 19


It truly disturbs the Oracle of Ottawa, to watch at times, various reports on the BBC that those pesky oil sands in Alberta are causing the ascots of my friends in the European Union to get all in knots. Depending on which source you cite, the blob of oil in Alberta is the largest or second largest deposit of oil on earth. The largest deposit of flowing oil is no doubt Saudi Arabia. The largest deposit of oil in one place on Earth is the Alberta Oil Sands! That was of cold comfort for decades in Alberta and Canada. It was like finding out that you had the biggest pile of the finest raspberry jam on Earth, only to be told that the bad news was that it was mixed in with an equal amount of crunchy peanut butter!

Will Prime Mover Technology Follow?

But the media, as it is today, has the most egregious way of getting things all out of proportion! It has only been in the last decade that the daily production has really ramped up. And yes, it is causing a hell of a mess! And that dear citizens of the world is not the only problem it brings! Once upon a time in Canada all the great social advances originated out in the Canadian west! Tommy Douglas was not a Toronto Bay Street corporate lawyer! It is hard to believe now, and most youngsters would laugh at you if you told them that the real Left Wing of political thought was born in the Canadian west! Now the west of Canada is the home of the most base and regressive right-wing Conservatism that this nation has ever known! People start acting right weird as a lot, when you drop too much money on them, too fast!

The biggest mistake that the whole world is making is that this is going to last forever! For the next one hundred years or more the oil sands will be exploited at an ever increasing rate and that all future extraction will be dirtier than today. Well citizens of the world, don't lose any sleep over it! That just isn't the way it is going to happen! What am I basing this insane statement on you ask? Why the writings of Buckminster Fuller and Moore's Law!

Think of the oil sands as the vacuum tube!

One of the most interesting arguments of old Bucky Fuller was the chart of horsepower per pound of a prime mover. For example the Watt steam engine weighed tons and produced less then ten horsepower! Now you have those little turbines that can carry a cruise missile for thousands of nautical miles... It is way more impressive to see it all plotted out on a graph. You really should look it up some time... What dawned on me recently was how that graph was so similar to the graph of Moore's Law! The only difference is the magnitude of the time factor.. (or not!)  So what is the moral of this story you ask? Quiet simply dear reader that in our lifetime we will see the Alberta oil sands abandoned! Along with all the remaining reserves still left unpumped and unclaimed in the Middle East and the former Soviet Union! So if you are employed watching the nut for some very rich people start laying off the core oil holdings now! At the top....

Soon to be a bunch of very unhappy campers!

I shared this story of my little prophecy with the well heeled, spoiled rotten little shit, of some oil shiek that was attending Carleton University a while back. At first he smiled in a condescending fashion, and then his face bled to a pale whiteness of unadulterated panic that truly amazed me! What? Was it something I said?

This isn't going to last as long as you think! See above....

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

James Moore Bans Doctor Ho, Saves Canada Day!

Philosophy starts when something goes wrong.
Robert M. Martin, There Are Two Errors In The The Title Of This Book, p. xv

Things must be going south fast at Sun News TV! Today was the day that Ann Coulter was to appear on the Ezra Levant section at 5:00pm local time. But alas Dear Reader it was a total non-event! The Oracle of Ottawa postulates that the memories of that near riot of welcome that the said Ms. Coulter experienced at an unrequited
University of Ottawa appearance, some winters ago, must still be fresh in her memory! She was more boring than a conservative house wife at an Ottawa City Council Meeting! Why the Oracle of Ottawa must fess up and admit that he fell asleep about half way through. But the time was not lost. Another quite unexpected issue came up that the Oracle of Ottawa feels compelled to report to the massive readership of this humble blog.

CBC saves Canada Day!
 It is with deep regret that the Oracle of Ottawa must report that Sun News TV will not be allowed to transmit the Canada Day show starting at noon on July 01, 2011. Apparently this right has been secured by the CBC for the a small sum of $600,000. One of the restrictions is that the show must be transmitted with out commercial interruption. All other events are wide open to the "other" Canadian media outlets. But for some unknown reason this caused the personage of Mr. Levant to go off like I have never seen him go off before! Why even his new blue tinted high-tech glasses fogged up! He was hotter than a deep fried motza-ball! It was all mighty entertaining and left the Ann Coulter interview mere anti-climax. It seems strange to this scribe, that  with the backing of the one of the largest media giants in Canada, Sun News TV couldn't come up with a paltry six hundred large!? Is there information in this admission of empty pockets?

A.Y. Jackson, Red Maple - Jimmy Moore got religion...

Apparently there is much relief at Heritage Canada and the Office of James Moore that there will not be Doctor Ho foot insole kiosks every 100 meters down the length of Wellington Street and the Sparks Street Mall after all! This caused Mr Levant to rail on about Mr. Moores sexual orientation, due to his "boyfriends" at the CBC! Well I never! As the Oracle of Ottawa feared the Conservative hardly washed are finally realizing that their boy may have gone Rogue! Yes indeed! Corrupted by the French girls in Hull and the bright lights of Ottawa! Instead of getting his dinner at the cheapest American burger chain, it seems that Mr. Moore has spent much time incognito at the National Gallery of Canada especially in the great room of the permanent display of the Group of Seven were he experienced an epiphany of the discovery of the Canadian Dream! He was allowed by the gods to enter the vortex... He has never been the same since... Canada will do that to you every time!
Reform Party love child...
 James Moore does have a real problem here. When other Conservatives, especially those with roots back to the Reform Party, start calling you a Liberal on provincial television, you are soon to be found under the bus! Complete with unproven allegations of snorting cocca-cola from the breast of a very attractive hooker! Soon you will be an independent, expelled from the caucus, and will no doubt bring down the whole show, why, just like Chuck Cadman! A truly Great Canadian at the end of his days...    


Damn the CBC! She was never the same after this....

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

CBC Exposes High School Confidential

Ah, fortune and fame shall follow me...and I shall dwell in the world of the chosen for a few moments of fleeting ecstasy; ere the seven burly lads turn into creditors and hustle me off to debtors' prison at last.
Hunter S. Thompson, The Proud Highway, Letter to Porter Bibb III, February 6, 1957, p. 44

As on every media outlet in Canada, there are stories and then there are stories. On our much beloved State Broadcaster The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, there are several times a year on average where a story comes on and even if you are not listening, you soon find yourself paying very close attention. And on the Monday June 20, 2011 National News it happened again. Ioanna Roumeliotis hit it totally out of this viewers park with here feature story entitled "Under Pressure" about high school, and all the intendent pressures and crushing expectations that these young people shouldn't even have to be thinking of. If the Oracle of Ottawa is any media hound at all, Ioanna Roumeliotis should win something for this story and it will be very well deserved! If this is what 1.1 billion of my tax dollars buys, we should double up the CBC's allotment to make sure we protect and even further extend this great national brand.

CBC - A tax dollar well spent!

The greatest shock that the Oracle of Ottawa received from this story was the horrific realization that the neo-conservative corporate agenda has even been allowed to invade our high schools! The bit where the young lad was talking to his guidance counsellor and she started by asking him if he had started taking the "pills" yet just floored me! That so called "guidance counsellor" so reminded me of the classic evil Human Resources thingy that every working male has had to clash with in the soul destroying everyday corporate work-a-day world. I was also very disappointed how much young students have become absolute whores to marketing. They are buying into every myth of the so called "American Dream" ! And for some of them, it is not working out to plan right from the start. This is all so very sad.

A Canadian archetype institution...

I could only remember how much of a hoot my days at high school were! In the four full years that I successfully attended, I can't for the life of me remember once hearing the words "Big Eight" or "American College" or any other of the buzz expressions that are wailed on today! We just didn't buy in to that in the 1970's. The thought of getting out of high school to go to an more boring and rigid institution seemed at the time and even more so now, as totally insane! To this sometimes contented camper, there is no greater truth than that stated by the great Thomas Carlyle; The true University of these days is a Collection of Books. The source of that quote by the way is; The Hero as Man of Letters. And no, you wouldn't catch me dead in a corporate rotted, soul dead "university"....

If you like CBC Television, you will also enjoy this..
 The real purpose of high schools should be to help discover who the student really is rather than programming
into them the neo-conservative marketed agenda that warps their minds into becoming what the agenda wants them to be! This world does not need any more "wanna bees". ( Damn Blogger formatting....)


 Forgive me, but what else would fit here? This is the way high school should be...Not some marketing horror mill....

Monday, June 20, 2011

Worried About China? - Forget About It!

Marriage is encouraged in China, not by the profitableness of children, but by the liberty of destroying them. 
Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, Book I, Chapter VIII, p. 87,


Even the most uninformed student of International Relations  has a pretty firm grasp of the problems that China faces at this moment, in this present day. Lets go over a few of them. The first and most dangerous is the ever increasing gap between the rich and the poor. The second is the soon to come demographic melt-down due to the results of the "one child" policy and the Chinese macho, peasant, penchant for the ego hard-on of having to have a male heir.This moronical thinking has resulted in an estimated group of excess young men not un-adjacent in size to about 42 million souls! Now there are not 42 million free women to be imported to China for love or money! Let alone 42 million Chinese women. The third problem, and this one really is lurking dark and low in the background, the total lack of countervailing power inside the mechanics of the essentially communist state. But as I will prove, this the least of China's problems...

China, just a stone tiger...

If you are an interested China watcher, you would really like the last Charlie Rose interview with Henry Kissinger, on the occasion of the release of his latest book, (and hopefully his last book), on China. Now my usual opinion of old Henry is that he is nothing but a bloody toff! Did you ever read any of his books? The babble is elegant and goes on and on, but soon you are like that old lady in the burger commercial; Wheres the beef! Well the Oracle of Ottawa was quite surprised that after nearly a million written words old Henry has truly hit it out of the park! Which I guess is proof that if you live damn near a hundred years even Henry will have one good idea or realization. Somewhere in that interview, Henry states the great discovery of why we just don't, in the long run, have to really worry about China. In the great western democracies any one can be a citizen. For example a black, white, brown, red or yellow human being can be a citizen of the United States. But at the end of the day only a Chinese can be a citizen of China! The same thing is true about Japan and most of the other Asian states, isn't it? You have to praise Henry Kissinger on that one, a brilliant realization.
Canada - China Friendship Society Meeting?

Now to the meat dear reader! The Oracle of Ottawa loves to do his own thinking. And when teamed up with a self managed brokerage account, and a penchant for picking stocks, the Oracle of Ottawa has done mighty well for himself. To achieve clarity and depth, to see where and what other people can't, you must get right down to the basic philosophical axioms that drive a civilization. Now what is the underlying driving philosophical force in China and the Western World? In China the basic driver is the social philosophy of Confucius. Basically this is built on family loyalty and social stability in government. Let the Oracle of Ottawa translate that into modern English: Nepotism and Corruption! Now Western Civilization is based essentially at the end of the day, on the Classical Dialectic. This is the method of the classical Greeks, such as Socrates as recorded by Plato. The system is based on thesis, antithesis, synthesis. That is, one party presents an argument the other party presents his argument and this is discussed at length, with the hope of reaching a new piece of knowledge. Now the greatest thing about this dandy algorithm is not its age and shine in our history but rather its total flexibility! It also works very well indeed inside the head of one person, and the starting bits can be taken from anywhere in time, or one from different times. Think of an infinite tree graph. of the Cantor variety. China doesn't stand a chance...


Modern China in microcosm, this is all we are essentially up against, do you get it?

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Sun News TV - Richard Zussman - What Did They Saw?

Thou art a little soul bearing about a corpse, as Epictetus used to say. 
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, IV,4

Now the Oracle of Ottawa is no grammarian by any means. But I do make every attempt to craft each word, phrase and blog post into a work of art, as yet unfunded by the Canadian Arts Council or Heritage Canada. And it is quite flattering to the personage of the Oracle of Ottawa, that he is more gifted at the turn of a word and the music and rhythm of a phrase and passage then some professional media hacks now at large.And in the case of one Richard Zussman the Oracle of Ottawa is even a more popular media personality, as measured by page view stats on Wikipedia! This is all quite extraordinary since the Oracle of Ottawa is blue collar and has not had one tenth of the education that my grammatically perplexed friend claims to have!

Paulis St. Gallen

But the great Mr. Zussman should not despair, Hunter S. Thompson didn't even finish high school and by Wikipedia page views he is more popular and thence, more important then F. Scott Fitzgerald! Oh my, indeed! Also, and this should be of great interest to the neo-conservative right, Karl Marx is three to four times more important than Adam Smith!  But I digress...

This faux-pas happened last week while the breathless Mr. Zussman was trying to regal the philistine Krista Erickson with his best Vancouver Cannuck "Green Man" imitation. Which truth be told was a total disaster! (also Mr. Zussman, I don't think Krista even likes guys...) The part where the microphone got caught in his shirt sleeve while striping to his green spandex was a total hoot! The next day the famous grammatical blooper "What did they saw?" slipped out... Oy vey! You want I should write you a cheque Mr. Zussman?


Still I'm Sad - Yard Birds 1965 - The Jeff Beck Version..... And no screw - ups!!

Saturday, June 18, 2011

2011 Vancouver Riot, Why It Really Happened

The premise of neo-conservatives is that markets left to their own devices will produce the best possible result, and that political interference is not required. This defies the human reality that people are not commodities, and simply refuse to behave as if they were. 
Bob Rae, The Three Questions,  p. 39-40

Rex Murphy really disappointed the Oracle of Ottawa last week by giving the rant and comment expected of him on the CBC National News regarding the Vancouver Riot! But upon a moments reflection I couldn't hold it against him. After all Rex is no doubt approaching his retirement date and has no desire to endanger that "defined benefit" pension plan that all old union card carrying CBC employees have! What would you do?

The comment that really floored the Oracle of Ottawa, was the several and assorted female talking head thingy's that were asking in shock and dread what all those young men were so angry about? This includes the dim and brainless Krista Erickson...Let the Oracle of Ottawa explain it to you!

We ain't seen nothing yet...

What is in it to be a young man today? Diddly squat! The Oracle of Ottawa thinks of all the times he ran amok in the 1970's in the true Hunter S. Thompson mode and style! Damn I lived! My old Dad has us into working at Gillies Bros. lumber mill, as soon as we could get a Social Insurance Number! I remember well my first night of a mans work as I laid stickers on the stacker with my Grandfather as the lead hand and my Dad as the shift foreman! No fucking minimum wage here thank you very much! I was in grade 10 at Arnprior District High School and that year I only earned about $6,500! The old man charged us rent to live at home! We worked usually four nights a week 5:00pm - 1:00am and went to school the next day! And yes I graduated! 

I had a Honda 350G motorcycle and yes the "G" could do over 100m.p.h. easy! For the inclement weather and the winter I drove a small 1972 Oldsmobile Delta 88 Royale with a little 455 cubic inch (9.5litres! What?) two barrel Rocket! Four door in brown, full wheel covers, freaking posh! The goddamn thing could do 125 m.p.h. easy with the pedal still not to the floor! We never missed a rock concert in Ottawa! I saw Rush just after they recorded "Working Man"! Could you imagine Getty Lee humping his own gear on and off the stage? Well the Oracle of Ottawa remembers it clear as bell! I still lovingly cherish the memory of Manfred Manns Whole Earth Band doing "Father of Night" at the Ottawa Civic Center. You poor youngsters will never know what rock was and will never be again!

New Canadian Street Art, No Government Funding Required

Now a young man buys a car and has to let his old lady drive him around because he can't afford to get auto insurance! Sign me up for that shit! When the Oracle of Ottawa started working the only pension plan there was, was "defined benefit", there was no question about it! I mean how hard is it for a mutli- Gizzilion dollar corporation to run a "sinking fund" ? How hard can that be? At that time, it was only a small fraction of the workforce that earned minimum wage. Now it is totally the other way around! What kind of fucking nightmare am I growing old in!?

I remember well a picnic party at my Grand Dads in Pembroke Ontario, when I was just a kid...in the 1960's!
His brothers were down from Sudbury Ontario. I remember my Grand Dad telling me that his brother was big in the Teamsters! Uh, yeah... the Jimmy Hoffa Teamsters! Jimmy Hoffa had a "mission slogan" back then and it went like this; Every Man A Cadillac! Compare that to that lame and dickless slogan by Bill Gates: A computer on every desk... I mean no contest... Well my Grand Dads brother showed up, in a brand new 1966 Caddy... Two door I believe, but what I really remember was the color...That shade of egg shell metallic BLUE... with the water beaded on it,  it was the first new Cadillac I had ever seen... There was a lot of upside to be a young man in those days!

This is how we get it in the future...

Now today a young man has a solid good gig being the Mother of his children while his old lady that should be at home earns the money. And being with-out union protection most of the time she will have to gobble some geeks cock or some strange ethnic bitch's joint why you stay home with your kids...They are your kids aren't they? God! Isn't the future fuckin' grand?

This creeping attack on us men has being going on for decades now... Nothing short of a full revolution will stop it. Did you notice the Police Chief of Vancouver? In 1994, he was a sargeant on the street! How the hell did that dweeb, that really looks like Dr. Ho's older brother, become police chief of Vancouver??...Now I know that being an on your knees member of the Canada - China Friendship Society can have its upside (see earlier posts...) but I have to agree with the head of CSIS that it is all getting a little out of hand! Nth generation Canadians should not have to develop a thing for Chinese Opera to get on in our own goddamn country....

Now just a statement of fact that I noticed in the video of the riot... There were hardly, or rather no "ethnics"
in the riot, look closely... It seemed to the Oracle of Ottawas old and tired eyes that all the ethnics that night were working as cops and firefighters!!!! Now, you can call me what ya like...But I already am retired, and I got all my money out, and I owe nothing to no one, and for good measure an Old Lady that has a federal civil service pension... I am no doubt the second last guy that can afford to tell the goddamn truth.... 


Just Love this Russian News service... They get right to the quick... No agenda, no talking points, there it is....
Next time, maybe they will light up the towers?

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Big Booty In Muskoka!!

A man should be upright, not kept upright.
Marcus Aurelius, The Meditations, III, 5

One good thing about bad government, it makes for great Question Period! And the Oracle of Ottawa feels already that in the 41st Canadian Parliament, we are well on the way to some of the greatest Question Periods of modern times!

When it all starts with a shocker, tighten your seat belts. And that is exactly what the young Micheal Chong provided by standing to and complaining of a proposed American Hedge Fund coming to his patch to open a small quarry that will only be about three miles long... and just devastate the local environment. But isn't that what the Tories want? Isn't it their policy that we need this "foreign investment"? It appears to the Oracle of Ottawa this young lad has the spine and presence of a Father of Confederation. And in turn is somehow by by accident sitting on the wrong side of the House and with a low grade of people....

Big Booty in Muskoka!! Woo-Hoo!

Today in Question Period, history was made...by Pierre-Luc Dusseault of the NDP, as he stood to in his place for the first time, and made his first statement and question as the youngest elected member of parliament in Canadian history! I don't even remember the question, but this youngster looked really solid on his feet, and his English was perfect. It looked like he has practiced in front of a mirror since he was about eight years old! So parents, if your Geeky kid wears thick pop bottle glasses and his/her favorite pastime is addressing Parliament in their room, do not wisk the poor kid to the Kitty Shrink! Make sure they have as many "adult" books on Canadian government and law as your little wallet can bear! They will repay your show of confidence! Out of the mouth of babes... it warmed the Oracle of Ottawas heart...

Rodney Weston, sits to his place... A great Conservative.


Then the highlight of the day, the Alexandre Boulerice, Charlie Angus tag team attack on the pathetic cowardly and today cringing Tony "Two Tier" Clement. Again it was the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the great man John Baird that came to his pathetic rescue. Today the theme was booty! Big Booty In Muskoka! Referring to the recent Porkathon at that G8 summit.... If it isn't true why won't it go away? It must be true because the John Baird devastating tell kicked in again, the yapping got faster and faster and lower and lower... Opps!

It was very nice to see the now Veteran MP Scott Sims standing to and going for the freakin' jugular! I guess the Weather Channel has given up any hope of getting their shinning boy back in this lifetime....Really great eat your own words attack today. The Conservatives really hate that!! And we all love watching it!

Poor Diane Ablonczy fattening every day from the binge eating? Cabinet a little stress full dear? No, really, The Flintstones is not a documentary, no I am not making that up!


Reform is back in town! But will they be able to get out of town??

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Pigs Fly In Muskoka

I didn't feel the need to have a lot of yes-men standing around me. As Mitchell Sharp once put it, the bigger the staff, the smaller the minister.
Jean Chretien, My Years As Prime Minister, p. 38

No rant today. In its place I will provide some observations from today's Question Period. The Oracle of Ottawa has noticed that the crop of newbies mixed with the old seasoned hands has provided observations that are begging to be made...And the paradox of the chiseling of the Conservatives on you and I while they are deploying the largest cabinet in history!

James Moore, a sad tragic waste of a Liberal

First up was James Moore, looking totally on the wrong side of the House in his dapper red Liberal tie! And no James, it doesn't make you look fat...The poor bastard had to try and tap dance through the fact that his budgets are being cut up to 35% at Heritage Canada to the shouted observations that that money is being redeployed to the new super-max prisons...Why, that is to build the Canada we all dream of...

Alexandre Boulerice and the lads did a most excellent pile on to Two-Tier Tony Clement! Why the lads were so together that the pig eyes of John Baird recessed even farther into his skull as he rose to fight Tony's battles. One astute seasoned  Scotsman, Charlie Angus I believe,  from the NDP mentioned something to the effect that it was raining pork in Muskoka! Yes, last summer the pigs did fly in Muskoka, didn't they? The shiny sheen of weasel sweat broke out on Tony "Two Teir" Clement and remained for the rest of Question Period...The John Baird lisp makes my skin crawl, but I continued to watch, fighting the gag reflex, this is for Canada after all!

Charlie Angus, a great future, deadly on his feet...

Of course we got to see  the Minister of Labour tap dance on the subject of those nasty strikes ongoing. The self thought slick Lisa Raitt said that the disputes should be left to take care of themselves. But on the six o'clock news that had somehow changed to back to work legislation... The strike at Air Canada is not even a day old! Of course organized labour's right to strike is under no threat at all is it?

It was a laugh a minute folks as the Minister of Indian Affairs (John Duncan) stood up in the House and admitted right out that yes the RCMP and CSIS were staking out any signs of evil doing. If you are in a band office, check the flower pots Chief!! And remember! Walk and talk - outside!!

Egyptian die, 600-800 B.C.

On a very sad and depressing note, the Oracle of Ottawa noticed the bitter visage of the Pembroke hottie Cheryl Gallant sullen in her seat, passed over again for cabinet. It appears that she has acquired the Krista Erickson look straight out of Sun News TV wardrobe and all! This should be exploited by the opposition! You just don't know what will puke out of her trap of a yap.. Always worth a shot!

The high light of today's Question period was the Maiden Question of Ruth Ellen Vegas Brosseau! I gotta hand to the NDP fart catcher contractors and trainers! I didn't recognize her! And damn, she is a Babe! But the Oracle of Ottawa knew he was witnessing History. That magic moment, when it was show time, and she stood to her feet and seemed to grow at least six inch's, the look on her faced changed, it was Magic! She realized it was time to really Roll'em for real and forever...We all witnessed the birth of a politician.

 Rock on kitties....

Monday, June 13, 2011

Kellie Who? And Canada Post

You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. ... This crisis provides the opportunity for us to do things that you could not before. 
Rahm Emanuel, Wall Street Journal, November 19, 2008

Brand is a terrible thing to waste.And we are all watching the demise of the Canada Post brand. There are very few organizations that go back to 1867 with a continuous unbroken history.This is a classic example of the failure of management. The classic example of a once great Crown Corporation being sacrificed to build a legacy of ashes, in the pursuit of an impossible goal of a failed Conservative political ideology. Four more years over takes for the greater good.

Now that's Brand!

The hopelessness of it all could have witnessed by anyone watching Question Period on CPAC today. You can see that this labour dispute is being exploited to advantage by the Torys in an attempt to demonstrate to their corporate and Bilderberg Group friends how tough they are going to be. It is totally unclear to me how this course of action will be to any ones benefit at the end of the day...

Now all this next bit is really confusing... The Minister of Labour is one Kellie Leitch who happens to be a orthopaedic pediatric surgeon!? This of course begs the question, who the hell is the Minister of Health and Welfare? Well that would be one Leona Aglukkaq, and she must be brilliant as hell since she seems never to have gone to school anywhere! I can find no academic trail any where... Such is Canada it the present dismal moment!    
Soon to be sold to UPS?

Now you would think that a Minister of Labour that is a professional in a healing profession, would be a pretty good starting point. But alas no, not when they have M.B.A. stuck into their resume and the real tell that you are deep in trouble here is that if they won a spot recently in that Top 40 under 40 marketing contest that was popular a while back. As far as I can tell it is a Rah Rah entrepreneur thing. In my recent personal experience, trust me, a nickel grasping profit driven soul in the healing and helping professions is not a good thing! We had this all out in Canada at the beginning of Medicare....But the upside here is that you got the warning and she isn't a proctologist

It could all be as great again....

So what is to be done with Canada Post? Well, do I have a solution? Funny you should ask! Of course I do with links no less! Canada Post is a Conservative bankrupt management fuck-up. The Oracle of Ottawa recommends the German solution, or if you will the Deutsche Post solution. You know them in Canada as the DHL! They started out in only 1995! They now employ over 421,000 people all over the world! They are bigger than UPS! They are the worlds largest logistics group on Earth! The Oracle of Ottawas pride does not preclude cloning a really good idea or model. If the German people can do it, and still retain financial control,
Canadians can do it, with a greater then 50-50 chance of doing it better. And yes they have all powerful labour unions in Germany...

 Why can't Canada Post copy this business model?? Are we not "German" enough? Or have we become too "Chinese??