The Please Clap Party

Politico is reporting that the Republican donor class is researching the feasibility of running an independent for President in a new party if Donald Trump becomes the nominee.  I want to suggest that the party be called the Please Clap Party.  Why 'The Please Clap' party? Glad you asked. Settle back and watch. 

Stumping for the Donald or Why America in an Election Cycle is the Greatest Show on Earth.

No country has anything like it. Enter the Stump for Trump Girls - Diamond and Silk.

On Hillary Clinton:



On Megyn Kelly:



On National Review and the GOP establishment: Meet the Red, White and Blue:



Much is made of the hold that the Democratic Party has on the African American community, and in order for any Democratic Nominee to win the Presidency, it requires the African American community to turn out for the Democratic Nominee but what if they do not?

I wasn't sure if the "Sisters" were creating parody videos until I starting searching You Tube. Apparently, The Black Trump phenomena is alive, well and stumping for the Trump.


Donald J. Trump, not just for angry old white people anymore. It's at times like these, that I can say, from the bottom of my heart: G-d bless America.

Wear a Hijab day ‘cause Muslim fundamentalists need love too.

One of the most boned-headed ideas of I heard of for a while is the Wear a Hijab Day for Ottawa women sponsored by The City for All Women Initiative (CAWI) (Ottawa is the capital of Canada).


Apparently, Ppresident Gamal Abdel Nasser thought the idea of suggesting women wear the hijab was outrageously funny.




But really what’s next? And where does it end? In a 'cut your clitoris day' so you empathize with women of Female genital mutilation?

Economic Traitors

I voted against NAFTA. I thought it was a bad idea then, and nothing I have learned since, has made me change my mind. The innate inequalities between US and Canada were too vast. A higher standard of taxation, differing minimum wages, pollution controls, health and safety, costs of operating, standard benefits were literally worlds apart. I do not have enough hands to count all the people I knew who lost their decent jobs to companies relocating their manufacturing to the United States. Furniture, cabinetry makers, small appliances, electronics, shoes, clothing, food and auto industries were either decimated or hit hard in Canada. Then came, the expansion of NAFTA with the entry of Mexico, and the nightmare just rolled on.

Many of those workers never found replacement jobs that provided even close to the same standard of living. Many of those workers did ‘retrain’ but their age and educational level often worked against them. It’s amazing what the impact 3-4 years of low wage retail sector employment and accumulative debt will do to your financial future. The 90’s was all about being turning Canada into a technical tech hub so we trained our young to be techies since we had destroyed our manufacturing sector. Then came 2000’s and so began the rapid outsourcing of white collar and technical professionals. 

Everyone tells you globalization is here to stay. You cannot turn back the tide. It’s a lie but I understand whose interest it is in to prompt this myth and let me give you a hint; it is not ‘we the people’.

Rarely do we get a glimpse inside the modern day robber barons, but this video originally posted on Facebook gives us a glimpse of life behind the corporate veil. The video begins with a Carrier official addressing their workers. “It became clear that the best way to stay competitive, and protect the business for the long-term is to move production from our facility in Indianapolis to Monterey, Mexico.” No doubt notice was given in order for the company to be in compliance with the WARN ACT.

The Carrier official entreats the crowd to understand, it’s not personal, but the business, the thing must be protected at all costs. Their lives and fate are meaningless outside this Borg. This thing is what must be protected at all costs.

Carrier indianapolis plant is closing 2017
Posted by LaKeisha Austin on Wednesday, February 10, 2016

There is an act of irony here. Carrier is relocating to Mexico to produce a product for re-sale in the United States, a product, a thing, that these very American workers may not be able to purchase in the foreseeable future. Furthermore, Carrier was granted a US$5.1 million 48C Advanced Energy Manufacturing Tax Credit in order to expend its Indianapolis operations. In a just state, this should be repaid in full with interest before it leaves the US. Instead, it’s ‘we the people’ who have underwritten the profit and shareholder value for this crony capitalist. Frankly, I would lose no sleep if the Carrier workers started to tar and feather these economic traders. Why any economic traitor should be allowed the safety and security of the Nation state at the expense of ‘we the people’. I never thought I would quote Pat Buchanan but he put it most succinctly, "Globalization is the economic treason that dare not speak its name."

There is a solution. A system of tariffs based on the equalization of wages, workers and human rights, subsidizations, health care, pensions, environment and health and safety standards for the importation of products made in countries who have no or lower standards than our own would go a long way to protect ‘we the people’. The only role for the nation state in the modern era is to protect and promote the well-being of ‘we, the people’. If the nation state does not protect ‘we the people’ then the Nation betrayed the social contract.

As for me, since adding shareholder value has become an all-encompassing pre-occupation with our business leaders, I am waiting for the day wherein, Boards all over the corporate world, recognize CEO’s can be outsourced to China, and a Chinese CEO can be had for USD$270,000 instead of millions.

Now that’s real shareholder value.

Give a Vegan a leaf and and he'll demand a human right, give a vegan a human right, and he'll want to take yours; 'cause you are wearing a leather belt.....

Some of the most joyless soul suckers have to be modern VEGANS.  

There is no way faster to ruin a party or a good time than to have just one of these joy suckers into a room. Quickest way to ruin a Shabat dinner? Invite just one vegan. Just one.  The moral preening and exaggerated sense of entitlement beggars belief. 

I don't care what dietary choices you make, but why do vegans insist on preening and being preachy to the rest of us?Just keep it to yourself and get on with it.  But no, they couldn't do that.

Now they want to be a protected 'creed'. Toronto Star.

Camille Labchuk, executive director of Animal Justice, has been fighting for veganism to be recognized by the Human Rights Code since she was a law student in 2011.“I wouldn’t call it an epidemic, but I do hear cases regularly of people who feel they have faced discrimination for their beliefs about animals,” she said.

 Animal Justice believes the updates could assist vegans in cases where students refuse to dissect animals, wear a work uniform with an animal-based component such as a leather belt or even ensure vegans aren’t excluded at work events held at steakhouses. “This is a really big step forward for human rights in Ontario,” said Labchuk. “It protects people like ethical vegans for whom not doing harm is more important than anything.”

Ethical veganism refers to people who not only follow a vegan diet but also extend the philosophy to the rest of their life and oppose harming animals or using any animal by-products.But some critics say ethical vegans may have bitten off more than they can chew.“The Human Rights Commission and the Human Rights Code were put into place to combat real persecution based on a person’s cultural, ethnic or religious affiliation,” wrote Amanda Hohmann, of B’Nai Brith’s League For Human Rights, in an email to the Star. “Should the interpretation of what constitutes creed be broadened to the point where any meaningful protection becomes difficult, this would weaken the effectiveness of existing legislative protections.”

Dominique Clement, a sociology professor at the University of Alberta, said he suspects the Ontario human rights tribunal won’t ever actually recognize veganism, but if it does, it will come down to whether or not accommodating their “creed” is reasonable.“If the person works in a restaurant, for example, and doesn’t have to wear leather, then that is absolutely a legitimate objection,” he said. “On the other hand, if you want to work at Danier, then you can’t ask your employer not to be around leather.”

However, he added it’s crucial for human rights law to evolve over time, so there is a chance ethical vegans will one day be recognized.“The idea of veganism as a creed sounds crazy.” he said. “But keep in mind there was a time when the idea that gay people and lesbians have a right to not be discriminated against was equally absurd.”

The other joyless soul suckers news; the Temperance movement philosophy just refuses to lay down and die a well-deserved death. Ever since the Toronto Star turned off comments the paper seems to have become more 'nanny' than news.

There is no human right to throw rocks at (or stone) Jews.

I believe Paul Bronfman is a mensch. 

First this, from the Jerusalem Post: 

Customs workers in Haifa thwarted an attempt to smuggle 4,000 anti-Israel stuffed dolls to the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank Tuesday, according to the Jerusalem Post's sister paper Maariv. The dolls, which were dressed in the Palestinian colors of red, green, black, and white, and in face-covering keffiyehs which had the slogans "Jerusalem is ours," and "Jerusalem, here we come" inscribed on them, were found in a container which was labeled by the importer as having had contained articles of clothing, rugs, and plastic products. 

The dolls, which originated in the United Arab Emirates and were en route to the Palestinian Authority, were meant to be used as tools of incitement for Palestinian youth. With rocks in their hands, the dolls encouraged the long-time phenomenon of assailing Jews with rock-throwing. 

 

The container's contents were spotted by workers at Haifa customs and held-back from dispatch in order to undergo further investigation.  "These dolls were making their way to the Palestinian Authority with one clear purpose," Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely said Tuesday. "And that was to poison the minds of innocent children." "The Palestinians are continuing to incite their youth, using any means necessary to educate them about violence and hatred. Here, it's in the form of a doll," she said.

York University Mural and Dr. Dawg's position. 

I might be more sympathy for Dr. Dawg’s position, if the artist had not painted the rocks into the hands of a young Palestinian man.

The minute the rocks were in play – it verges into the glorification of Anti-Semitic violence which has no place in any Canadian university.

One last thing I want to add. I kept looking at this mural, and something registered with unease, I cannot say for sure the rocks in the hand, and then, it came to me. The eye draws you to the rocks in hand, and above the rocks a flag of Palestinian, and above the flag of Palestine, the outline of the entire state of Israel. 

Take back the food supply

I went to the grocery store this week. The papers have been fill of articles like this CBC report but the price of everything floored me and that’s saying something since I keep a kosher kitchen. 

Coffee was absolutely outrageous.  One of the items on my list was garlic. California garlic was $2.99 for 3 small bulbs. Chinese garlic was $.99 for six. Then there is ‘Organic’ but grown in Mexico for $5.99 for 3 bulbs. Organically grown seems like a bit of misnomer since all vegetables grown in the ground or from trees and vines are ‘organic’.  I guess this means without pesticides and/or non-chemically made fertilizer...of course, just what kind of fertilizer used could be rather problematic from a health perspective.....but hey, its’ organic.

I think to myself how is this possible that garlic which is grown half a world away and have to be freighted via ship and then road to Canadian supermarkets can be cheaper than garlic grown in California? There is no ocean to cross, and yet, it is decidedly cheaper. I looked for Canadian grown garlic, and there was none.  Potatoes were the only Canadian vegetable I could find.  

I went looking for canned tomatoes and could not find one can of Canadian grown tomatoes. I am not saying there aren’t any, just none in the grocery store I was in. Some of the cans will fool you. Packaged in Canada, but a product of China, this makes me wonder about the so-called ‘packaged’ in Canada really means.  Is it just the bilingual label? How do we really know? And just how has it come to be that the shelves in our grocery stores are not teeming with food made, processed and packaged in Canada? But they are not.

There is nothing that cannot be grown in Canada. It could be expensive, at least initially, although $8 dollars for a head of cauliflower isn’t exactly ‘cheap’ but I digress. There is nothing we cannot grow. This country has space, access to water, and the technology to grow everything here. There is no reason why we could not have large scale greenhouse orange groves but we don’t. We became world leaders in growing hydroponic marijuana; so why can't we do this for oranges, lemons, grapes and limes?

It seems ridiculous and foolish, in a modern first world like nation like Canada, that our entire food supply is dependent almost entirely on foreign sources and often subject to huge price fluctuations owing to international currency volatility. Part of the blame is a lazy media with poor math skills and limited cognitive reasoning that is all too willing to blindly accept any explanation given by someone uttering it authoritatively...and don’t get me started on how voodoo economics shapes and influences commodity markets.

Just think about this, our dollar has dived (around 12%) against the US dollar but it has grown 10% stronger against the Mexican peso but produce from Mexico has risen dramatically in price – meanwhile the price of gasoline keeps plummeting...so why isn’t the higher purchasing power from the Canadian dollar and lowered transportation costs reflected in lower prices in produce from Mexico?  Even the offset the weak Canadian dollar with the lowered price of gasoline and then there is no reason but the greed to explain $8 cauliflower. 

But really, the less said about health consequences for foreign farming/processingstandards, the better. And, if you really must eat pre-package breakfast cereals and snacks, do you really need to eat Corn Flakes, Special K or Pop Tarts made and processed in Thailand? 

We need to take back our food supply.

As for me, I am taking one of those California bulbs of garlic and planting it. For less than a $5 initial investment, I will have approximately a year’s supply of garlic growing in my home come July/August. At the end of the summer, when Ontario grown tomato harvest comes in, I will take off two days and start canning for the year.