The Left Wing Redneck

As the great Canadian Border and Capital Cities blockades wind their way down, we might ask where were the police?  This was far from the first Canada's first blockade rodeo. When the Indians (as in First Nations), environmentalists, G20 summit protesters, strikers, unemployed workers etc., take to the streets the police can be counted on to show up in full riot gear ever ready to restore order.  Maybe they learned from past mistakes, or maybe cops are reluctant to bust the heads of their drinking buddies.   Most Canadian cops are smart enough to keep their opinions off social media, but there are a few who have not gotten the memo yet .  Which is yet another reason that our police forces need greater diversity.  With a better selection of pissed off oppressed minorities the cops would be able to respond to any flavor protest with equal enthusiasm.   

  As Queen Elizabeth II's record reign winds down to its inevitable conclusion, Canadians are thinking about who will be our next head of state.  Canada is a constitutional monarchy and Queen Elizabeth is Canada's head of state.  As she is a very busy lady, Elizabeth delegates queening to Canada's Governor General.  At one time the British Monarchs chose their proxy from a pool of unemployed British aristocrats who might benefit from being thousands of miles away from their liege, but these days the Monarch is even too busy to choose Governors General, so lets Canada's Prime Ministers pick who will represent them. Being that Elizabeth is 95 as  this is written, Canada can expect a new monarch sooner than later.   For the same reason Barbados, another of the Queen's realms, have chosen to convert from a constitutional monarchy to a republic.   Which has some Canadians wondering whether Canada should do the same.  Not that Canada has anyth...

When opinions are criticized, we are told that every one is entitled to have an opinion even if it is wrong. Unless, of course, you disagree with this.  

Dick, Jane and Spot  go to school The redneck,is a boomers, people born between 1946 and the late 1950's.   We are called boomers because our parents had lots of kids, so they named us the baby boom.  Now that we are senior citizens the baby part was dropped.   An interesting thing about being a boomer is that apparently no one saw us coming, despite  census data that would have revealed that we were not sneaking up on anyone.   The most memorable thing about my school years is that every school I went to was under construction. Every one of my schools also  had 'portables' trailer park classrooms planted in the schoolyard.   One of my schools was so short of teachers it was staffed with old warhorses who should have been retired decades ago.  My grade 5 teacher used to fall asleep like clockwork every day, right after morning recess, he had to be at least 70 years old. When we got to College, it was the same as our school days.  ...

  The  Siberian Shaman Humanity's original religion was probably Animism.  Animists believe that all things living or dead have spirits, even inanimate objects like rocks, trees, rivers and motorcycles.  Animals hunted and killed for food, or trees cut down for construction projects have spirits too. It is OK to to kill the deer or cut down the oak but their spirits must be treated with proper respect.  The Redneck has been bitten, burned, tripped, and smacked by just about every inanimate object or living thing he failed to treat with respect.  Animism remains the religion of choice in remote inhospitable environments from the high arctic to steaming jungles and arid deserts, places where a good deal of respect for the things around you are needed for survival.  You might be a closet animist if you swear at hammers that hit your thumb, or if you gave your car a name other than the manufacturer or registry office supplied one.   According to ...

  This is a test. Which of these three vehicles do you think was responsible for the most carbon dioxide emissions per year in Alberta?  Each vehicle was listed for sale in the Alberta Kijiji on line marketplace in late April 2021, cherry picked by the Red Neck to make a point.  So if you smell a rat, you are correct.  The Tesla is only four years old as this is written, but has managed to rack up an impressive 171,000 kilometers.  The little Civic is also extremely well used, 480,000 km and counting.  The truck on the other hand, has accumulated 82,327 km over 7 years, which for Alberta means it's mostly a lawn ornament.  Comparison  will use the average mileage, or kilometerage per year for each vehicle, so the Tesla's impact will be based on 42,750 km per year,  Honda has been motoring along for 15 years, so 32,000 km PA, the dumb truck could only manage 11,761 diesel burning km a year.   But wait the Tesla is electric, so zero e...

  Officially Canada is 100% metric, but in reality our heights are in feet, we weigh ourselves in pounds, but we buy our steaks in kilograms and put liters in our gas tanks.  There are several good reasons to use imperial measure and some bad ones. The best reason for imperial is that we share many products with our imperialist cousins, the excitable states.  Most of the stuff we buy,  food weights or volumes, cooking temperatures, building products manufactured, measured and sold in feet, inches, gallons, quarts, liquid ounces or in Canada as awkward conversions to metric no one uses, such as a 3.78 liter one US gallon can of paint.    A bad reason to use imperial might be old fartism, of which I could be guilty.  When I learned to measure it was in imperial, but stick with me a for a moment.  When the 18th century enlightenment era philosophes (bored French rich people) contemplated ridding society of archaic measuring standards, such as the le...