johnzo

Assume that all stories are fake right now -- especially the ones that capture your attention, like the heroically dying "go **** yourself" snake islanders.

bear in mind that propaganda machines are in overdrive on all sides, so the facts will not get in the way of a good story at this point. Like, is there really a Ghost of Kyiv? Only the Ukrainian air force command knows.

thing about the Russian economy is that it's smaller than Canada's -- don't know how you maintain that massive offensive army and all those nukes with that tax base. Ukraine might be able to outlast Putin's economy...

cabinet shuffles always seem insane to me. how are a minister of justice and a minister of labour interchangeable? Wouldn't you want skills and backgrounds tailored for each role?

oh, just thought of one more: f) the truxxers were positioning themselves for a return to Ottawa with rural staging camps to the north, south, east, and west of Ottawa. Don't have the reports handy but I've read that those camps have largely evaporated. The end of that threat might be a factor in the timing here.

my guesses: a) It looks terrible for Trudeau if his cabinet declares an emergency and the elected government doesn't even review it. The vote gives legitimacy to a legitimately controversial thing and was conducted in accordance with the law, which may be important for future legal action related to the occupation. So Parliament has to vote. b) off-camera investigations / actions may have been facilitated by the Emergency Act -- remember the government is extremely interested in the financing of the occupation. Might have needed a couple of days to get those closed out. c) with the Q-trucker occupation banished and its leaders defanged, Trudeau is the main character of this storyline. "Ottawa calm but Trudeau Clings To Emergency Act" is not a headline the dude wants to own. Now the headline is "Trudeau ends Emergency Act" which is the outcome that most Canadians want, I think. Trudeau looks decisive; he rides to the rescue of the feckless Ottawa and Ontario authorities and then he dusts his hands, proclaims mission accomplished, and Canadians are free to tune out. For better or for worse, voters like decisiveness and clean endings. d) the wingers were pumping a fever dream of a Castroist Trudeau unleashing a cultural revolution backed by Bill Gates, grandma-trampling RCMP horses and genderqueer BLM vaxx squads. This is a hard storyline to work when your vile dictator has relinquished his emergency powers in accordance with the law. Lots of winger spin rooms getting a workout today; the one I see most frequently on twitter is how the ending of the Act is a profound diss to Jagmeet Singh. conservatives concern trolling about Singh is hilarious. e) Senate vote was a big opportunity for opportunist senators to grandstand and give the Liberals more headaches. This has been defused. I don't know if this was a credible threat given how sleepy the Senate is, but the right wing media was sure pumping the tires on this angle so maybe it had legs. You need characters to do a storyline like this and the cons don't have anyone good; Lich and King and the rest of them were swivel-eyed goons, Candice Bergen is clearly in over her head and has no idea how to manage a story of this magnitude, Ford in Toronto isn't going to rock any boats with an election coming, Randy Hillier has strong "jerks off to the Handmaids Tale" energy, etc, etc.

oh man the organ part is so beautiful in this song.

I remember the first time I drove from Sault Ste. Marie to T-Bay in the springtime. it was gorgeous, dramatic rock cuts, awesome lake views, little waterfalls everywhere. I've driven a lot of places and NWOnt is right up there with Utah and the Pacific Coast as the most beautiful places I've ever been.

moved out here to the west coast in 1999. previously, I lived in Ottawa which I believe is snowier than even Winnipeg. I loved the Seattle rain for the first decade just because I didn't have to shovel it. I had a loooong driveway in Ottawa. Now the rain gets me down just like everyone else. What people don't tell you about is that our summers in Seattle are glorious, warm and dry. The rain just shuts off and we get two months of gorgeous weather starting right around July 4th with manageable temps, tho lately the seasonal fires have been messing that up, and we got heatdomed hard last year. I do miss the very late sunsets, clean air, amazing star-watching, and dramatic thunderstorms of my birth home in NWO. They're nice things to visit.

this reads like shenanigans to me; the Post is attempting to moderate PP because they really like him. I suspect he's pro-abortion just like Barack Obama was anti gay marriage.

In other Pat King news: he claimed that Honeymoon Suite, Kim Mitchell, and Platinum Blonde were playing the occupation mainstage on the weekend. But alas... I would have been very sad if Kim Mitchell had played to the cracker barrel. the song is "go for soda", not "go for the imaginary grievance politics of the petit bourgeois." and hey Platinum Blonde is recording new material. Never been a big fan but at this point in my life it's just nice to hear a name I recognize...

More self-contradictory nonsense from the National Post. Not gonna link because **** giving them traffic. He's not a uniter. He's just got 82% of Canadians backing his approach. it's a total fascist play to portray your enemies as both strong enough to be terrifying but weak enough to be defeatable. It's a line they walk. Umberto Eco described it:

It blew my mind as a kid that the Bombers could shed all that top talent in 1988 and still win the Grey Cup, especially after the great 1987 team crapped the bed in the playoffs. This would have been the era where Ty Jones and James West were having to buy their own socks at Sears, right?

Even now in the crackdown, the cops' tactics have been gentle. Repeated warnings, ticketing, financial penalties, arrests of key people, and leaving the insurrectionists an escape route. No teargas, no LRADs, not a lot of baton swinging. Those crackers are in Ottawa trying to get their heads busted, they have provoked the population relentlessly. (This is funny because Ottawa is the least confrontational place in the world. It makes Seattle look like the Bronx.) They wanted to show the world that the tyranny they imagine is backed up by actual jackbooted new world order cops. That'll legitimize them, bring in more believers and more marks. When they were controlled nonviolently -- like when they were blockaded in at Billings Bridge and Riverside -- they are helpless. I think the authorities' working theory is that this is a fringe movement that won't be popular in Canada, but it could go more mainstream if people get sympathetic to it, and scenes of good honest canadian whiteboys and their kids getting kicked around by evil NWO cops is a great way to build that sympathy and legitimacy in their target audience.

leadership in Ottawa was unprepared. Ottawa is a really sleepy town. it wasn't until the convoy was locked in downtown that they realized how ****** they were. They were justifiably freaked out about the idea of truck bombs or dead kids, they didn't want to be responsible for Canadian Waco or Oklahoma City. They were hoping the goobers would go home on their own.

Clements was my first favorite Bomber. I'll never forget the very cold october afternoon I spent at Winnipeg Stadium watching the Bombers practice, just so I could get his autograph after practice. Still have it in my papers, I've laminated it and it went with me to the 2011 Grey Cup. Because I am a giant nerd I subscribed to the Free Press archive last year and I re-read all the stories from Clements' arrival and departure. The story the Freep told was that Clements was a victim of the end of the Carling CFL sponsorship deal in 1987 -- overnight the CFL lost millions in free money. Clements justifiably didn't want to take a pay cut and had lots of off-field opportunities -- dude has a law degree from Notre Dame, a pretty heavy education -- so he retired. DeWalt was very much a plan B and was on the scrap heap when the Bombers called him.

"Two hours of talking, a little respect, a touch of democratic process and the whole affair could have been washed away." this is hilarious and stupid. Rex spends 95% of his wordcount decrying Trudeau as a complete amateur, a pretender, an insult to Canadians. But somehow JT also has the magical power to placate and soothe some snowbank-shitting **** Trudeau cracker who drove multiple days across Canada just to blare a train horn on Wellington Street in Ottawa ... and who signed onto an insane "MOU" that called for Parliament to be replaced by a committee of truckers. I wish Trudeau was half as awesome as right-wing freakazoids believe him to be.

Other QB stats can be just as dumb: a 5000-yard passer like Kerwin Bell or Trevor Harris can put up elite stats and only rarely win. Everything being equal, I'd rather roll with a winning QB like Fajardo (or vintage Matt Nichols, another journeyman with an elite win-loss record) than a guy like Harris or Bell. The other weird thing about Fajardo is that he's making some chicken salad out of a pretty crappy lineup. The Fajardo-era Riders have had a strong DL and a good placekicker but not much else; their OL was a patchwork mess, their RB was old, their receivers are spotty, etc, etc. how the hell is that team manufacturing wins? There is some moxie to that guy, even if it's not enough moxie to beat the Bombers when it matters.

The bottom line on fajardo is that he's gone something like 20-6 as a starter vs. the rest of the cfl. That's an absurd win percentage, that's BLM territory. No way anyone who wins that reliably can be a total bum. Alas, this superman has a kryptonite -- the blue bombers. He's just 2-5 vs us and has lost four straight to us. He is a good qb who plays on a frankly dominant football team. But he is not a champion. Because. We. Own. His. Ass.

I wonder if we draft a kicker or perhaps several this year.

hah lol. I was in such a hurry to make a joke about the Elks that I didn't look at the date. Old news. Carry on everyone.

hey, question: looking at the Bomber store, there's no option to customize mens' road jerseys. I want to get one of our roadies, I think they look ultra sharp and we are 2x champs wearing them. Can anyone recommend a shop where I can mail order a road jersey that's pro customized? I have always said my next jersey would be BATTLE 34 or KHAN 60 but after these last two championships I think I want to celebrate the current bombers. I'll probably pick a lineman ... Thomas or Hansen ... I used to wear a ROBERTS 1 and that tiny skinny little 1 on my XXL navy chest made me look very very chonky.

yeah, Brandon's point is legit. painting every protester as a nazi is incorrect and counterproductive. Some of the organizers have some serious stink on them, though. Pat King is a piece of ****, if you're lining up behind him or beside him, you gotta ask yourself some questions. Tamara Lich seems to have absconded with a bunch of GoFundMe money that's been completely unaccounted for. Also note that the MOU that the original convoy organizers put forward has demanded that Parliament be replaced with a citizen's committee that would work with the Senate and the Governor General to instantly end all public health policies regarding to Covid. That is uh not how this is going to work guys. So yeah, I'm sure there's people there for whom the health restrictions have been a giant bummer, and who would have my sympathy. Unfortunately the people who are organizing them are various mixes of crazy, dangerous, and grifter.

With Flex moving to LB, the DipshitsElks have turned to free agency to source a new tailback. https://3downnation.com/2022/02/08/official-edmonton-elks-sign-former-riders-defensive-back-ed-gainey/ Also, looks like we won't have Charles Nelson to kick around anymore, he's listed on the Edmonton roster.

gotta go back and rewatch the Edmonton games from last year ... Biggie absolutely stuffed Wilder on one play and gave him a little flex afterwards. perfect gif material. next year hopefully Bighill, Maston, Briggs et all remember that Wilder thinks he could just walk into their position and play it...