Reflections of an Old Man

From the Canadian Encyclopedia: “In the 19th and early 20th centuries, public health was concerned with quarantine measures and emphasized improved sanitation and vaccination campaigns that were initiated in an attempt to control major infectious diseases.” The creation of special agencies concerned with public health followed and officers of these agencies were given special powers to issue public health orders in regards to regulating public behaviour. Seems to make sense, but a problem arose during the Covid pandemic which has its roots in the professional backgrounds of most of the people working in public health agencies: The higher echelons are doctors and nurses that have emigrated from the sick care system and so have brought their attitudes and beliefs with them into their new jobs. Their preoccupation as public health operatives therefore became the preservation of the sick care system as we understand it, i.e. overcrowded hospitals. The overall health of the public became a

I live in a 100 acre wood, 20 of which belong to me and 16 acres being a municipal reserve set off for public use. The surrounding fields are mostly used for hay cropping by local farmers. Having retired from 30 years of raising German Shepherds, and only retaining three dogs as pets, my place in the bush has become decidedly more quiet of late, a fact not lost on the local deer hanging around. In the summer of 2021 I created about 1.5 kilometres of track through my bush, wide enough for my truck, in order to access standing dead trees for winter firewood, another fact not lost on the local deer. This year the farmer’s field to the east also happened to have hay bales left sitting on the ground until the end of November, which the local deer really appreciated. Result: 20 acres of deer trampled snow and surrounding roads impregnated with hunters’ truck tire marks, and a shot into my yard to top it all off. Anyway, the deer using my property are pretty happy, judging from them still han

Reportedly. Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is set to spend a week in Jamaica with his family, compliments of the Royal Canadian Air Force (that is us, taxpayers), skipping all the nasty weather Canadians and Americans are having to put up with, including power outages, untrafficable roads and grounded aircraft. This is perfectly in line with previous behaviour, like ignoring the first Indigenous Truth and Reconciliation Day on September 30, 2021, going surfing at Tofino on Vancouver Island instead. And that’s only one in a long list of behaviours indicating his self centred behaviour and indifference to others. His ego likely took a huge hit when his minders persuaded him to go into hiding in a cottage in the woods as the Freedom convoy approached Ottawa back in February. At that time he became the laughing stock of better than half of all Canadians. (Reminds me of the time when Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser appeared in the lobby of a Memphis, Tennessee hotel in his

Leader of the Kyiv regime Zelensky’s visit to Washington today is a clear marker of an escalation in the conflict of two empires, in Ukraine. The Western Empire under the leadership of unnamed operatives in New York, via the Biden administration, and Putin’s gang in the Kremlin. The feedstock on the Ukrainian side is both military personnel and civilians, with Russian soldiers on the other side. None of them want to be there, each one with a ticket to the hereafter. Meanwhile, the political operatives use them as pawns in their power game, including taxpayers that fund this evil enterprise.

That is the question. Much is made of the idea of “democracy” these days. An arrangement where people agree to be ruled by the will of the majority for the sake of the common good. And compensate, within reason, those that are adversely affected by decisions, like loss of land compensation for land use decisions, for example. For the last 100 years or so we in the west have been playing the “democracy game”, pretending that we live by those lofty rules, respect them and act accordingly in public life. Our democracy model is supposed to be based on that of the ancient Greeks, where citizens took turns, by way of elections, to run civil society. What is not talked about very much is that Greek ‘civilized’ society was based on slaves, captured in wars and traded as commodities. While some of our ‘slaves’ (low cost labour) have an opportunity to vote, they are relatively easily manipulated to enable the existing power backroom groups to get what they want, at the expense of those voters. B

Ukrainian refugees Following intensified Russian attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure, Norwegian news sources this morning report that an increased outflow of refugees from Ukraine should be expected: Apartment buildings cannot be heated by wood fires. The Kremlin is trying to terrorize civilians and cause chaos within Ukraine in order to remove their rivals in Kyiv. Alberta is well positioned to receive more Ukrainian refugees with a strong economy and a large existing expatriate Ukrainian population. And we need more workers to fill existing vacant positions.

Reports abound about labor shortages across the world and here in Canada. The baby boomers are getting old and they did not procreate like generations before them. So, here we are, with lots of money in the bank and fewer and fewer servants. The Romans had similar problems in the first and second centuries AD. That was one of the reasons for their extensive conquests of other lands: Slaves were one of the main booties of these campaigns and were considered to be major assets to their owners. In a more (maybe not) civilized world, labor is being imported to wealthy countries, with a minimum of civil rights granted, and sent back to poverty in their home countries when no longer needed. Sometimes I think the slaves of antiquity got a better deal. They were considered to be assets rather than consumables. Realizing where things are heading, Canada’s government has now increased new permanent resident targets to 465,000 in 2023, 485,000 for 2024 and 500,000 in 2025. The risk is that these

Here in Western Canada spruce and pine rules the roost as far as preferred wood species for building goes. Dimensional lumber by the millions of board feet are produced on a regular basis and exported all over the world. Shortly after arriving here in 1987, I took an interest in a deciduous species called “trembling aspen” that is also very common but not as highly regarded. In the building trade is is primarily used as feedstock for Oriented Strand Board (OSB) production and can now be found in that form in every modern home constructed. Having faith in the value of this wood, I called my 40 acre wood “Aspenwood” when I settled here in 1991 and have enjoyed the protection and utility of this tree ever since. Using chainsaws, I cut most of the dimensional lumber for my cabins from aspens right in the yard, and beyond for larger beams. Results: Providing it is kept away from alternating wet and dry moisture, stopping the fungi from moving in, the wood is as good as it was 30 years ago.

Way back in the nineteen forties, George Orwell (Eric Blair) wrote the novel “1984” about a dystopian world where three empires were at perpetual war against each other with shifting alliances: Oceania, Eurasia and East Asia. From the political map of today's world in 2022, there is an almost exact correspondence with existing power blocks: The Western Empire, Russia and China, and they are all competing with each other for power and influence across the world. So Eric Blair knew exactly what he was writing about, as a former civil servant in the eastern parts of the declining British Empire of his day. And we have now arrived with open conflict between the Western Empire and Russia in Ukraine, with intense propaganda on both sides of the conflict. A good example being the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to anti Russian activists this year. The slogans of Oceania in “1984” were: “War is Peace!”, “Freedom is Slavery!” and “Ignorance is Strength!” And then they had “Newspeak”, a political

An indication of the pressure felt by the Kyiv regime can now be discerned in attacks on targets inside Russia, including airfields using Soviet era missiles. This can be seen as a result of Kremlin initiated destruction of Ukrainian energy infrastructure, designed to ultimately topple the Kyiv regime. I am deliberately not using the terms “Ukrainians” vs “Russians” because they are just the pawns in the game on both sides. The Kyiv strategy is pretty obvious. Try to draw in the Western Empire, of which NATO is the military arm, by provoking Russia. I don’t think that will happen as long as NATO members don’t supply Kyiv operatives with long range missiles. If that were to happen, all bets are off. A brutal conflict where the dogs of war are doing their best to increase the bloodshed for their own profit.

I live on 20 acres of forest land sloping gently to the north in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains in Alberta, Canada – along with plenty of visiting wildlife, including foxes, coyotes, ravens and crows, lots of deer and the occasional bear and moose. This year the deer have prevailed, after I cleared som 1+ kilometres of track though the dense undergrowth in July of last year. That following having multiple visits from two grizzly bears in August of 2020, resulting in the death of two of my German Shepherd dogs. This has resulted in my property becoming a haven for local deer, with easy access to a farmers’ field to the east with plenty of feed to munch on, while retaining an ideal shelter in my now semi open bushland with high speed escape lanes provided. So, this winter, instead of seeing untouched white snow in the bush, I’m out walking on a deer highway on my snowshoes, judging by all the tracks permeating the lanes. During my clearing operations in 2021, I also came across two

Most of us have played the monopoly game at some point, and have won or been bankrupted. It is a game of winner-takes-all and the loser walking away with nothing. The trick is to acquire ownership of assets and making other players pay to use those assets, thereby moving money into your own hands. At some point other players need to borrow money to pay their dues which puts them ever closer to losing the game. Players who buy assets may also choose to borrow money, at a calculated risk. The background player in this game is the bank that supplies the money for the whole exercise and mirrors the role of the central bank in contemporary society. Right now, the central banks of this world are rapidly increasing interest rates to borrowers, which are a whole bunch of commercial and investment banks, that in turn increase their interest rates payable by the consumers of loans issued by the banks. The idea is to make it more risky to take out loans for new enterprises to cool down the econo