In the truth is stranger than fiction department, the British Columbia Health Services Authority has actually promoted the use of “glory holes” in order to avoid the spread of COVID-19.

This is a beautiful example of government bureaucrat thinking coupled with a deranged notion of political correctness written into policy.

For those who don’t follow tasteless comedy or take part in anonymous casual sex in public washrooms, I will explain what a “glory hole” is.

Glory holes are holes that were typically cut into the cubical walls of men’s washrooms to allow for anonymous sex acts. One can use their imagination there.

The holes are typically found in truck stop or highway rest stops.

Now, while COVID-19 is indeed of concern to some people, I can’t imagine how performing anonymous sex acts in a filthy public restroom is any better. People appear to be forgetting that there are hundreds of other infections and diseases out there, many of which are far more dangerous than COVID-19 and I can only imagine that use of glory holes is a fine way to pick one of them up.

So why on earth would a government health authority suggest use of glory holes?

Well there are two reasons. One is simply that bureaucrats tend to truly be linear thinking morons blinded by their own obsession to make policy. They are simply looking at ways that people can avoid breathing on each other and can’t look outside of their simplistic box.

The other thing bureaucrats are blinded by is a deep sense of political correctness.

To be blunt, glory holes are a remnant of the bad old days when gay men were pushed underground by societal condemnation and literal law. Public washrooms gave a means to hook up relatively safely and anonymously.

Due to advances in public thought and online communication, I am suspecting that glory holes have fallen into disuse for the most part and are now more of a piece of urban mythology than reality.

Still, some pointy headed bureaucrat at the health authority likely felt that glory holes were an integral part of the gay community and that it was best to recognize their use as a COVID-19 contraceptive. They felt it would be offensive to leave such a practice out of their list of suggested “safe” sex acts.

I may be off the mark in my speculation of the motive of the idiot who put this suggestion to paper in the BC health authority but in light of how utterly absurd the recommendation of glory holes is, I can’t imagine that I am too far out to lunch here.

This is reason number 100824 for wanting smaller and less intrusive government.

Do you really think these people can run your lives more wisely than you can?

Corporate welfare is an insidious and damaging economic strategy which is used by governments at all levels and pretty much with every party. Whether through direct subsidies, preferential tax treatments or selective regulations, governments try to pick economic winners among the business community and invariably end up creating losers.

Franco Terrazzano of the CTF and I discuss historical examples of failed corporate welfare along with current ones. From the city of Calgary’s $100 million slush fund to Premier Kenney’s petrochemical initiatives.

As governments seek ways to restart the economy that they shut down, the lure of trying to use corporate welfare in order to do it appears to be overwhelming for them. Punishing successful enterprises in order to shore up the unviable ones won’t help anybody (aside from the crony capitalists with hands extended).

It was a great chat and we covered a lot of ground in 40 minutes. Give it a listen below.

You work hard and pay taxes on your income.

You save your money and pay taxes on the capital gains.

You live responsibly and pay your bills on time thus building a good credit rating.

You purchase a home and pay taxes on the purchase.

You pay property taxes on the home.

You work hard to maintain the home and invest in renovations which of course you pay GST on.

After all of this, if all goes well your home will have gained equity.

Now the Liberal government of Canada is considering stealing your savings through an equity tax and the galling pricks have the nerve to call homeowners who have managed to gain equity “lotto winners”.

Doesn’t that feel nice?

Isn’t it good to know that your retirement and hard earned nest-egg may be snatched away in order to fund things such as the corrupted WE charity that appears to primarily exist in order to launder tax money towards well connected Liberals?

I wish that I was making up this gross travesty but alas its true. The Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation (federal government arm) has spent $250,000 in order to study how to gouge Canadians with a home equity tax. When researchers literally describe hard working home owners as “lottery winners” one doesn’t have to wonder too hard about where they plan to go with it.

These are extreme ideologues who want to “equalize” the perceived inequity between renters and home owners. Like all practitioners of the politics of envy, they view the fruits of the labor of others as being unfairly earned somehow. They have a repugnant urge to seize those funds and give them to the irresponsible in hopes of creating an egalitarian utopia.

This is hardly new of course. It has been tried and failed in numerous nations from the Soviet Union to Venezuela. The only thing that changes with extreme socialists is the approach to their goals. In Canada they are trying to do it incrementally rather than through revolution. The end result will still be the same though. They will bankrupt the nation if allowed.

Will Canadians finally find the will to stand up and tell these thieves to piss off?

I fear not.

Canada is broken and the ride is only going to get worse.


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Below is episode three of the Cor’s Notes podcast where Cory Morgan and Franco Terrazzano of the Canadian Taxpayer’s Federation discuss disastrous corporate welfare policies which are screwing taxpayers at all three levels of government. It is a great discussion of a pressing issue.

My second podcast episode and first one done through a Zoom interview. The delay presents some special challenges to the discourse but we got through it.

Thank you to Josh for working with me as I get the hang of this podcasting thing.

The American South is often one of the most misunderstood and mischaracterized regions in North America. While the deep south has a terrible reputation for ingrained racism, it appears to have stayed clear of the rioting and unrest which overwhelmed many Northern cities.

Many people have not spent time in the South or spent much time speaking with people from there.

Josh Tupman is from Benton Mississippi and is tiring of some of the stereotypes.

I have known and worked with Josh for some years now.

He offers a perspective on racial and social issues that we Canadians rarely get to hear.

It was an interesting chat.

Calgary’s hospitality sector is down to a tiny shadow of what it once was. Years of recession coupled with a decade of huge municipal tax increases has driven countless restaurants and bars out of business. The COVID-19 pandemic shutdown wreaked utter havoc on the industry and those few remaining businesses which are still operating are hanging in there by a thread. With already traditionally tiny margins in the industry, restaurants and bars are barely squeaking by and only because of federal wage subsidies and a loan program. If the industry takes one more hit, it will kill countless struggling establishments.

Nenshi for some damn reason appears to be bound and determined to hammer that final nail into the coffin for Calgary’s hospitality industry by implementing a pointless mask bylaw.

Pointless?

Yes.

Let’s look at the numbers.

Restaurants and bars have been open with limited capacities for over a month now. People have been dining, meeting friends and socializing and the vast majority of them have not been wearing masks. Retail stores have been open throughout the entire pandemic and the vast majority of patrons there have not been wearing masks either.

So have we seen a mass uptick in infections due to this?

Not a damn bit!

Today’s numbers from the government of Alberta:

With 6,808 tests done yesterday, 46 new cases were found. Active cases are in the hundreds. No spike. Not even a bump.

What about our health system?

In a province of 4.4 million people, we have 55 in hospital and 7 in ICU.

Covid is barely putting a strain on the system.

In light of that, why the hell is Nenshi proposing a bylaw for masks? This thing is under control. There is no reason to crack down further on citizens.

Nenshi was bitching that he is seeing too many Calgarians going about their business without wearing masks. So fucking what? All that matters are the stats and the stats make it clear that the lack of masks has not been a problem. Get over yourself Your Worship!

Now imagine what will happen to the hospitality industry if Nenshi brings in his mask bylaw.

To begin with, it is rather impossible to eat or drink with a mask on. Not sure how we are to get around that. Some have said that people will be able to remove their masks in order to eat?

What?

If people can remove their masks in order to eat and drink, then it is clear that they didn’t need them in the first damn place. Will they put the masks back on when people walk near them? Put them on while chewing and take them off for the next bite?

Either people will be forced to wear masks which essentially means that restaurants, cafes and bars are back in lockdown again which will of course bankrupt them or there will be exceptions made which would prove the pointlessness of the bylaw. How could you make exceptions?? Isn’t the whole thing about “If it saves one life?”.

People are social animals. We like to eat together. Drink together. Talk together. That is why takeout never has and never will replace restaurants and bars. If we are sweating and gasping behind masks while trying to speak and socialize without seeing each other’s full faces, the experience will be ruined. People simply will stop going out to restaurants and bars again.

I expect little of Naheed Nenshi and he rarely disappoints.

This proposal of bringing in a mask bylaw has to be the dumbest damn thing he has come up with yet bar none. There is no reason for it. There are no stats to back it up and it will do terrible damage to already struggling businesses.

I deeply hope that sane members of council tell Nenshi to roll his bylaw up and stuff it deeply into his behind.

Calgary’s industries simply can’t take more abuse from Nenshi’s whimsical, anti-business city hall.

This is the first of what I expect will be many podcasts.

There are so many interesting people out there with so much to say and conventional media simply doesn’t present the opportunity to hear from people on complicated issues. Cancel culture has limited what the mainstream media is willing to touch as well and we are losing out on some great discussions on pressing issues.

For a maiden episode, it went quite well. I look forward to them evolving as I improve both my interviewing and editing skills.

In February of 2018, intruders invaded the rural property of the Maurices near Okotoks Alberta late one night. Eddie was alone with his baby and in confronting the invaders, one was hit in the arm by a .22 caliber bullet from a ricochet from a warning shot.

This led to Eddie’s arrest at gunpoint and an ordeal with the criminal and civil justice systems which put the Maurice family’s life on hold in a stressful nightmare which took nearly two years to fully resolve.

Eddie and Jessica discuss what happened, how it impacted them and how we can change the system in order to prevent this sort of thing from happening to others.

Click on the link below to download and listen. It was a great chat with some great people.

CHAZ stands for Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone. It is an area in Seattle where a number of urban city blocks have been occupied by a group of extremists for some weeks now after rioters chased police from their own precinct. Different self-appointed warlords speak for CHAZ at different times and they have been trying to rename their little encampment to CHOP lately. It is as one would imagine, a chaotic mess.

The picture above shows one of the self-appointed, armed border guards of the CHAZ. Surely a safe, well trained and self-controlled individual.

Prominent CHAZ warlord Raz Simone and his gang have been policing CHAZ at night and has violently punished offenders who commit crimes without his express permission.

Raz’s law enforcement appears to still have some holes in it as thefts are rampant while multiple shootings and murders have happened in the CHAZ in the last few weeks.

The Marxist paradise of CHAZ appears to be having growing pains.

So why on earth would I propose that every city should have a violent, lawless slum within it?

Bear with me here.

There is a subculture of extremists and losers who want and will use any excuse to set up long term squatter encampments such as the CHAZ. They did so with “Occupy” years ago or even more recently on rail lines within Canada. All they are seeking is an excuse.

The “occupy” movement began with marches of thousands in cities throughout North America. Many rational people came out to express their concerns peacefully in demonstrations and then went home.

The irrational and extreme decided to stay and set up camp however.

The “occupy” camps were the same throughout North America. They were filthy tent-cities filled with disturbed people being enabled by outside socialists who would fund them and drop off food before heading back to their more comfortable, capitalist funded domiciles. Rapes, thefts, overdoses and assaults were common throughout the encampments as police shied away from them.

It was revealed in many of these camps that most of the tents were actually empty and had been set up to try and demonstrate a larger movement.

Eventually every city had to finally find the courage to ask police to clear out the bums. The evictions were often violent as squatters resisted their eviction and the cleanup costs added up to millions when cities were all combined.

In Toronto, a group of violent, extremist squatters has set up camp in the square in front of City Hall.

These people have no rational purpose or mission. No realistic set of demands and nothing better to do apparently.

They quickly get violent with any press as can be seen below and Toronto authorities are terrified of them.

It is inevitable that these squatters will have to be kicked out eventually and it wont go easily. In kicking the can down the road, politicians and other people in authority are simply letting these people entrench.

Since these encampments appear to be inevitable, I am proposing that we allow them and control them.

Think of it like the way parents used to deal with kids who were caught smoking. They made them smoke a whole package of cigarettes in one sitting so that they got so ill, they no longer were interested in smoking.

Why don’t we let these ambitious Marxists all have their own little autonomous zones so that they can truly experience and enjoy a world without those nasty things such as police and laws?

Every city has some undeveloped lots somewhere. Let’s put those barren spots to use.

Declare a large, undeveloped lot as an autonomous zone within every city. Put a large, chainlink fence up with limited gates and let the anarchists have their spot.

Let these people demonstrate how they can run an autonomous paradise free from those evil systems and controls which they claim to want to eschew.

Lead by example young Marxists!

Prove us all wrong. Create an egalitarian utopia in all these cities! Surely people will soon flood to join you in these paradises and perhaps even begin to buy neighboring lots so that your beautiful nations can expand!

These autonomous zones will provide a release valve when extremists try to set up camp in city parks and at halls which are for public use.

They can be told “Get the hell out of here! Here is a map to the local autonomous zone!”

The rights of the extremists to use squatting as a form of free expression can be protected but they can be contained.

The working world can carry on with their lives of being productive and paying bills unhindered by socialist extremists who can work to try and form the first successful communist states within their little autonomous zones.

This method would beat the ongoing game of playing whack-a-mole and knocking down illegal squatter encampments as they pop up and perhaps allow some lessons in reality to sink in with these extremists.

There really is little to lose. These people truly don’t have anything better to do or anywhere else to be so let’s give them their space in order to do what they do.

Tired of the constant and clearly biased censorship being practiced by Twitter, many conservatives are beginning to make the move to a new platform called Parler.

Parler is very similar to Twitter in its operation and means of interaction. There are different terms for different actions but it is much the same thing as Twitter. It is a form of short form discussion and sharing of stories and events.

Parler stands apart in its dedication to support free speech as much as possible. No more shadowbanning or outright banning of accounts that may stray from the accepted dogma of the platform. That alone makes Parler an attractive option for tired conservative minded commentators.

The thing that makes me most optimistic about Parler though is that they have created measures to deal with the anonymity issue.

Nothing makes a keyboard coward tougher than the security blanket of anonymity. Twitter has become known as a cesspool of negative dialog and most of that is driven by the nearly endless stream of belligerent, anonymous accounts.

It is striking how quickly anonymous internet tough guys turn into sniveling kittens when they suddenly have to post under their own name.

Canada had a great example as Neil Waytowich rampaged throughout twitter. He tirelessly trolled accounts and spewed endless profanity laced attacks against public figures online while he hid behind his anonymous identity of “Neil Before Zod”. He prided himself on being blocked by other twitter users and he poisoned countless discussions through his toxic interjections.

Waytowich finally annoyed folks enough that they began to search out who he was. A publication called Blacklock’s Reporter figured out who Neil was and outed him. .

The change in behavior from Neil was immediate. Upon having been exposed, he was suddenly meek and apologetic. In media interviews he was seen to be something of a pathetic figure. He was nothing without his cloak of anonymity and has been nothing since.

Unfortunately, there are still millions of anonymous accounts out there and while Waytowich was a prolific one, his outing did little to improve discourse on Twitter as a whole.

Twitter has a verification system but they only apply it to accounts which they consider to be in the “public interest”. How exactly that is defined is muddled and only one in thousands of Twitter accounts managed to acquire that precious blue checkmark of verification.

I have proven quite effectively that one can still be an abrasive asshole without hiding behind anonymity. That said, with my account being verified I have to stand behind my words.

Parler offers account verification for everybody. It involves sending them a picture of your ID along with a selfie. I am not sure if it is working for Canadian ID yet but I have sent mine in.

One can still keep their name private on Parler while being verified. Many folks need to due to employment constraints. It still will strongly discourage folks from posting threatening or illegal things as they know that in extreme cases, they will be tracked down. It also keeps users from spawning a whole pile of accounts. While they may create many accounts, only one will ever be verifiable.

It makes a huge difference when people have even a little skin in the game.

I used to play online poker. When playing in the free tournaments, the play was unbearable. Other players didn’t care about the game and they simply went all in with every hand. When paying only one dollar to enter a tournament however, the play changed incredibly. With simply registering a form of payment and in spending a buck, people suddenly took the game more seriously.

The same stands for internet discourse. When one has invested the time and trouble to verify a personal account, they will take it more seriously than a burner account that they created on a whim. Bots can’t effectively verify either.

Will this make internet discussion totally civil or deep? Of course not but it will make it far better.

I do hope to see left leaning people starting to drift into these new platforms as well. If debates are reasonably civil, they can be productive. This is nearly impossible with Twitter right now which has become a mire of white noise.

I do hope that this migration of users to a new platform either takes off and replaces the old social media giants or at least encourages them to reform.

Social media can be a valuable communication tool but it will only get worse until we find a way to wash out the anonymous users who are intent on ruining discourse.

Parler has made a great step. Click on the picture at the top of this post to join and follow me there. Lets make this thing work.

We are used to sensationalism and bias from media. This is nothing new and they push the boundaries in order to draw the clicks.

This gross example from NPR is beyond the pale though. They have gone into the realm of utter bullshit as they implied that right-wing extremists are using vehicles in order to assault protesters. While this did indeed happen once in Charlottesville, this was not at all what happened in this incident.

Below is the repugnant and inflammatory tweet from NPR

NPR is spreading fear and hate by creating a false story of vehicles being used as weapons against peaceful protesters.

It is actually surprising just how stupid their editors are to let this one go in light of the fact that the full video of the incident that they pictured is available online and it proves their story to be utter crap.

Watch the scene unfold for yourself below. A woman in a vehicle was surrounded by rioters. As they tried smashing her windows in order to assault her, she tried to escape in reverse. She then fled and yes, hit one of the criminals on her way out. It clearly wasn’t purposeful. She was fleeing in self-defense and I don’t see how anybody else would have acted differently.

Those of us old enough to remember the fate of Reginald Denny know full well what can happen when a motorist stops amidst rioters. He was pulled from his truck and beaten nearly to death. We have seen contemporary videos of just this sort of thing happening to other innocent motorists who found themselves to be in the wrong place at the wrong time as well.

We have yet to see videos of anybody purposely plowing through protesters with intent to harm yet this is just what this sickening story from NPR is claiming.

Tensions are high and people are getting hurt. To see a mainstream media source such as NPR who try to claim a moral high ground as a “public” broadcaster sinking into crap like this is sad.

There are some solid and fundamental factors which have led to the racial unrest happening in the United States.

One unacceptable factor though is the fanning of the flames by media outlets such as NPR.

The violent rioters were rightly arrested following that incident by the way. NPR apparently missed this detail.

The merits of holding a referendum on equalization are debatable and there are valid points to be made on both sides of the issue. Nenshi’s enraged opposition to the possibility of a referendum is based on pure, vulgar elitism. Naheed Nenshi thinks that Albertans are incapable of handling multiple questions at once at the ballot box. He claims that coupling a referendum with the municipal ballots next year would be “disrespectful to voters”. What is disrespectful is Nenshi’s attitude towards the great unwashed voters.

Nenshi’s dream of spending billions of tax dollars on two week party as a personal vanity/legacy project was dashed solidly when taxpayers were given a choice to vote on an Olympic bid. Naheed was “very very” disappointed in those curs who dared to slap down his pet project. In light of that, it is not surprising that Nenshi doesn’t want to empower citizens further by giving them more choices to directly vote upon.

Mixed direct/legislative democracy is not an untested concept. Switzerland has long used this style of governance. In being one of the richest and peaceful nations on earth while being small and landlocked, I would say that the Swiss are on to something. In giving voters a direct say in policy for generations, their unwashed masses have guided the country into being one of the most successful nations on earth. The humble ground level voters not only could handle multiple ballot questions, they appear to have consistently chosen wisely.

The Swiss go to the polls on referendum questions several times per year and vote on dozens of initiatives. Some are as serious as their overwhelming choice to refuse to join the EU (really pissed off the elitists with that one), to voting on whether farmers who choose to de-horn their livestock should qualify for agricultural subsidies. The ballot lists smaller local initiatives right along with larger federal ones and those darned voters somehow manage to handle these choices.

The Swiss have been allowing their citizens to vote directly on policy since 1848 so I think it is fair to say that their system has withstood the test of time.

Direct democracy helps keep voters engaged and increases turnouts. A Swiss electoral study had found that over 90 percent of voters had cast their ballots at least once in the previous 20 votes. Numbers that we Canadians can barely dream of. Those turnouts rise and fall depending on the issue of the day but clearly the electorate is very engaged. Great to see isn’t it? Unless you don’t actually like giving the majority a direct say in matters of governing of course.

Are the Swiss all immeasurably smarter than Albertans? Hey, they are clearly pretty bright but I am not sure by how many measures they may be better equipped than Albertans are in handling direct democracy.

Nenshi feels that Albertans are too dumb to walk and chew gum at the same time. He thinks that having more than one or two questions on a ballot would confuse the masses.

Nenshi’s biggest fear of course is simply in losing control. That is the hallmark of an ivory tower elitist. Perhaps a better engaged electorate may finally toss him out on his ass so he can enjoy retirement with his two tax funded pension plans.

I trust Albertans to be able to handle making choices on a referendum ballot at the same time as picking their municipal representatives. It is sad but unsurprising that Nenshi thinks so little of the voters who pay his salary.