Ghostbusters: Afterlife Review (2021, Sci-Fi/Horror/Comedy, Sony Pictures/Columbia Pictures/Bron Creative/Ghost Corps)

 

 

 

I ain't 'fraid of no waxing nostalgic

 

This film was a long time in the making. Since the last entry in this exact series (the 2016 reboot/remake is not tied into the more familiar first two films, at least not directly) was released in 1989, that means that this film took 32 years to make. So in effect, it took all of us nearly as long to get a film sequel to the 2nd mediocre film as I have been alive on this earth. Yikes, but that's not an issue really.

 

What is an issue, for me anyway, is how mixed my feelings are after having seen it in theatres on opening weekend, which have persisted to this day. At first I was so excited that I was shaking, but after a while my anticipation of great things died down akin to a fire waning into mere embers. In part because as the film rolled on more and more, I felt something similar to what I did when I saw the 2016 film in theatres almost six years ago: familiarity with the story beats. This is not a new criticism of either film, but I felt it big time in this one. While the 2016 movie tried (and mostly failed) to do something new (like giving us a new, fresh set of faces not tethered to the original crew), this film simply relies on an almost overwhelming amount of nostalgia value to achieve its goals. It just doesn't have much going for itself as a standalone feature in this franchise.

 

So let's get some positivity in this review; the presentation is very good. There's something cathartic about seeing the familiar again, like the proton packs, the ECTO-1 vehicle, the ghost trap, and others. While the fictional inclusion of the in-universe adverts for the original crew showing on fake YouTube were a bit hard to swallow (this didn't bother me, it just seemed to be an odd, seemingly unintentional breaking of the fourth wall that I never would have expected), almost everything else that reminded us, the viewers, of the original classic are present & accounted for, and they work. 

At least for a while...

You see, this film hinges too much on material from the original film and ends up losing its own identity as a result. What could have been a decent look into a budding, new generation of Ghostbusters, ended up a middling re-tread of not just tropes, but plot threads from the first movie decades ago. There's a problem with all of that: we, the audience, could just watch the (significantly better) original in that case. Why bother with a long-awaited sequel that recycles so much of the first film, when you can just stick with said film and mostly ignore this one with little consequence?

The film presents dedications to the memory of Harold Ramis, the one who played Egon Spengler (but not the person who "played" the character in the opening sequence, whose face is never shown for obvious reasons), and I feel conflicted about them. On the one hand, it is touching to give the character a great sendoff (even if the ideas behind what led up to the film's events are very questionable); on the other hand, they seem exploitative to me. There's absolutely nothing wrong with giving a text-based dedication to Harold Ramis like most films do, but this film went further. It featured a CGI-based rendition of Egon Spengler. But that wasn't Harold Ramis, obviously, but for another thing...

...this was a version of Harold Ramis that is more-or-less congruent with what most audiences remember of Egon Spengler (tall, lanky, nerdy-looking, wearing glasses, etc.) but age-appropriate. Never mind what it would mean for younger audiences. Despite the immediately-touching aspects of this on-screen digital necromancy, Harold Ramis, towards the end of his life, was markedly different physically. Take a gander:

 

 

Notice a difference? I'm not engaging in any sort of post-humous body-shaming here because that's not my intention here. Instead, why couldn't the CGI-rendition of "Harold Ramis" be – I don't know – accurate to how he was towards the end of his actual life? Given that in-universe, he obviously grew old and apart from all friends and family since the events of the second film, why couldn't he resemble the real-life Harold Ramis? I don't get why they couldn't do that instead of the idealized rendition they gave us in the film proper. I won't get into the greater ethical dilemmas this trend of digital necromancy may pose in future film releases, so I'll leave it at that.

 

The original members of the team didn't need to be here, since they didn't really amount to anything more than appeal to nostalgia. Ray's appearance could have been fleshed out a bit more, and better too, but he also could have been left out of the climax. These characters only serve to undermine not just the new characters, but the very principle of this film: ushering in a new generation of Ghostbusters. Call-outs are good, but to have them show up in the flesh, with their appearance amounting to nothing more than a cringe-worthy nod to a silly joke from the original film's climactic battle? I'd have passed on that.

There are genuinely fun moments in the film. It has an upbeat chase & gunner sequence that wasn't done before in the film franchise; brief (and few) sequences with Paul Rudd are always welcome; some intriguing story ideas were explored a bit, even if they went nowhere (sadly enough). There was potential for something pretty good here. If only that potential was explored rather than the end product. I'd rather have the (canonical? Not sure if it has that status anymore) 2009 videogame from Terminal Reality than this one. 

It's not even all that funny, either, and the original was mostly a sex-charged comedy-horror romp that was honestly a needle-in-a-haystack lucky break for all & sundry. This was a conflicted waste of potential and time, sadly enough. We all deserved better, Harold Ramis deserved a better send-off (just the text would have been excellent), and Jason Reitman should have had full reign over the creative & directorial touches needed to give this film the proper touches to allow it to stand out. It only took about 38 years to do, you know?

C

 

The Good:

+ It's Ghostbusters

+ Some genuinely solid moments in the film, as mentioned in the body of the review

+ Paul Rudd

+ Looks good, sounds good

+ Phoebe McKenna did a decent-enough job in the lead role 

+ It's nice that Harold Ramis got a touching dedication, but... 

+ Was filmed in (mostly) local areas around where I live (at time of writing)

The Bad:

- Recycles much of the original film, especially as the film drags on

- Harold Ramis' memory was...exploited in this film. Good intentions were there, sure, but "the road to hell is paved on good intentions", right?

- Why even have the classic Ghostbusters at all? They didn't do anything important or conducive to a distinct, new experience.

- Wal-Mart...Wal-Mart...Wal-Mart

- Re-uses Gozer as the main villain once again. Why? Why not Ivo Shandor, like in the 2009 videogame? He even made an appearance, only to be suddenly killed off by Gozer for no good reason.

- Not all that funny

- Plot-holes aplenty

- Why is Finn Wolfhard even here? His character barely makes sense and is just a convenient plot device. 

- Give me Slimer, not...Muncher.

My Thoughts on the Election Results

NOTE: As of this writing, even as I publish this, mail-in ballots (of which there's expected to be plenty) have not been counted in full, so there may be a slight change in some results when they're finally counted. The opinions written below reflect on the potential results from these mail-in ballots.

Looks like more of the same — a minority government three-way. Okay, okay; it's technically a four-way but it doesn't feel like it because one of the three opposition parties has a focus only on the province of Quebec. The Bloc looks like it lost a few seats, with the NDP making fairly big gains. Not too bad, but the NDP needs better leaders next time. Yes, leader with a plural. If not, the leaders need to GET THEIR ACTS TOGETHER! Honestly, supporters of all parties should demand better of their leaders, present and future. I'm stark serious on that. But going forward, I expect obstructionism and partisan grandstanding from the opposition (NDP & CPC, in this case), with picky-choosy politics from the Bloq depending on how much of a whiff of a fart the country of, I mean, province of Quebec, will get in all forthcoming decisions.

 

On a Liberal minority government:

 

The people need to demand better of Trudeau. He needs more pressure, and I'm not talking about the fake bravado and showmanship kind of pressure that permeates the sociopolitical landscape, either. I'm talking about the people holding the Trudeau Liberals' feet to the fire. No more half-measures, no more reneging on pledges, and stop pretending. Address climate change, stop maintaining the status quo so damn much with regards to the income gap and climate change, stop merely 'saying' with regards to indigenous reconciliation and start 'doing'. 

 

End oil & gas subsidies, stop putting corporations first whenever & wherever possible at the behest of the workers. UBI, UBI, UBI! Pharmacare, dental care. Stop apologizing when you don't need to because if you didn't mean anything harmful by something you said or did a long time ago then why fucking apologize!? Improve your optics because the opposition and the vulture-like media will hop on ANYTHING you do or say to score cheap political points. Stop trying to please everyone because no matter how much you try to appease your usual detractors, it will never be enough. Less cute platitudes and more action.

 

On the (actual) official opposition:

 

I don't really take the Bloq all that seriously to be really frank with you, and why not? They just care about Quebec, so why should I care about them? Priorities, man. Anyway, on the CPC & NDP, I expect nothing but obstructionism going forward. Most especially from the CPC. I'm glad that the CPC didn't win this time around, so I can breathe a sigh of relief for that one. I do that for virtually all Canadians, too, even the ones who actually voted Conservative. You really, REALLY don't need them, folks and the CPC don't deserve just ONE of your votes.

 

The NDP is what miffs me the most. Sure, I loathe the CPC but the less I can talk about that criminal brigade, the better. Anyway...Jagmeet Singh needs to fucking go, guys. He's lost the plot. He's exploitative, ignorant, and loves to gaslight everyone. He's got charisma and seems ambitious at first, but there's nothing but empty space in that veiled ambition. He's also a two-faced prick who will jump on any bandwagon in order to score cheap political points. This is not a unique trait for a politician to have, by any means, but with Jagmeet it was relentlessly discouraging.

 

He had me at "Hello!" when he came into the limelight several years ago. I still remember his encounter with a rabid member of the Alberta Jane-Q public, and how he handled that dangerous creature with gusto and respect at the same time. He also had an air of real charisma and charm to him, seemed very affable, too. Was great in the more down-to-earth interviews and such back in the day. Even until last year, when he did a live-stream of "Among Us" on Twitch alongside people like Alexandria Occasio-Cortez and others, he still seemed to have that likeable quality to him. I was willing to give him a chance even then.

 

But then he resumed being a part of the "here's some bullshit about Trudeau that means nothing and just waste's everyone's time" crowd. Remember, prior to the 2019 election, he joined in on the insipid fake-outrage non-scandal that was "blackface"? That fucking happened almost exactly TWENTY YEARS AGO. And it was for a damned gala event, themed in the style of...Arabian Nights! And he chose to dress up as Aladdin. It was an upbeat, casual, positive party event for a school in Vancouver. The two guys seen in one of the photos of Justin in blackface had even come out and said they were not bothered at the time because they were all just having fun. 

 

A huge nothing-burger over what was really just a waste of all our time. Justin, silly enough, actually apologized for that and I really want to personally pick his brain, in a matter of speaking, as to why he did that. I'm a fair person, even when I'm critical. Indeed, if I'm critical, then I'm paying you some form of respect because if I didn't have any for another person, then I wouldn't even give them a moment of my fucking time.

 

Singh's "trial period" has run its course already and it's time to consider either of two options:

 

A ) Replace him with a truly ambitious, more confident leader who doesn't play silly partisan games and focuses on what his party can do for the country instead. Minimize uttering the name "Trudeau" if possible, only for substantive criticism at most.

 

or...

 

B ) He needs a major overhaul in his leadership style and abilities. Enough to convince me that he's actually leadership material and not just some bitchy, opportunistic and ignorant rich boy from Burnaby who, for some reason, wears Orange instead of Blue.

 

Because it was fucking hard to vote Liberal this time around. We should all demand BETTER of ALL of our party leaders.

 

As for Bernier? Well, even Beauce (his riding, which he LOST today) doesn't really care so I certainly won't. I mean, 😆😆😆 I guess. Enough talking about that manchild tantrum-throwing loser.

Discourage Pure-Breeding of Dogs

Pure-bred, or 'pedigree' dogs are more likely to have various health issues, because the more you breed the dog (to be pure), the more their genetics get...messed up due to the fact that this is a case of in-breeding. 

What is the big deal with in-breeding?

 

Well, it causes your recessive genes to eventually become dominant ones. These recessive genes can carry traits from one generation to the next. Selecting the right mate for a dog where such recessive traits are not apparent, or are believed to not have the trait guaranteed, can lead into the diversification of genes. Every sexually-reproducing creature, which includes humans of course, must promote the diversification of genes by mixing with those who are not so closely, even directly related. Diversity wins, demonstrably so, again and again.

 

Anyway...

 

Just some dogs that have some major health issues because of how they're bred (especially if pure-bred, which is a euphemism for in-breeding, which only makes these issues worse with each generation):

 

•  The English bulldog
•  The Pug
•  The Norwegian Lundehund
•  The Bull Terrier
•  The Basenji

 

Then there's breeds with certain traits that persist due to breeding (sometimes in-breeding, others because of deliberate selection of traits, etc.):

 

1) The German Shepherd: hip dysplasia is the most prominent issue, and most visible (the lowered hips).

 

There's at least one breeder (seen here: https://www.facebook.com/TsaheyluShepherds/) who is working to rectify the issues that have been plaguing this breed for generations.

 

2) The Dalmatian: prone to deafness

 

A study with 26-years of data shows that there's an effort with some breeders to decrease the incidence of deafness, by selecting mates that do not exhibit this trait. In-breeding has allowed the gene to proliferate more often in this familiar breed. (https://www.veterinary-practice.com/.../new-study-reveals...)

 

3) The Boxer: many of these dogs have heart disease

 

Earlier this year, research at the Cummings School yielded some promising clues into reducing the predisposition of this breed for getting heart disease. The disease in question is called "arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy", or ARVC, a condition that humans can get as well. It's a condition wherein fatty tissues replace the normal muscular tissues of the heart, which can interrupt the electrical signals the heart needs to function. You sometimes wouldn't know that your dog(s) of this breed have it until it's already dead – sometimes suddenly so.

 

Read more on that study here: https://now.tufts.edu/.../mending-hearts-beloved-dog-breed

 

...and more where both lists came from.

 

Encourage the diversification of the genes of dog breeds. If you want a dog:

 

1) Adopt a dog from a shelter or owner who cannot keep said dog for whatever reason.

 

2) Jumping off of the previous option, give senior dogs a chance. They may not have very long to live, and could have health issues, but they deserve happiness like any GOOD BOI.

 

3) Find a responsible breeder who tries to correct the problems with pure breeds, and takes care of their dogs & their puppies. Never wean a puppy before 3-4 weeks of age because that often leads to its own set of issues down the road. A place like Kijiji is actually fine for looking to adopt, since the site has had to follow enforced guidelines over the years. 

 

Still issues with trust and quality of breeding programs, but how can you absolutely avoid that in this world?

 

It can be difficult due to a variety of reasons, but if more people educate themselves about the downsides of espousing "pure breeding", then they can help endow future generations of the various degenerating (through no fault of their own) breeds with a brighter, healthier future.

The Extremely Wealthy (Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, et al) Should Not Be Celebrated

 

The absurdly wealthy dipshits like Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Richard Branson, Bill Gates, Bernard Arnault, Warren Buffett, Larry Ellison & Larry Page, Mark Zuckerberg and others do not need to be celebrated.

 

When Jeff BOZOS went into space for 11 stupid-ass minutes for several BILLION dollars in a giant rocket-powered penis awhile ago, it should have been the wake-up call for most people. I know he's not the only one who flaunts their obscene wealth but that was just too much. Plus, the media and others who fucking praised that jaunt into space whereby BOZOS' rocket-powered penis violated the lower depths of space, embarrassed themselves in glee over such a profound waste of money. 

 

The stupid media even called this an "historic event." My ASS it was historic; it was fucking embarrassing. If aliens are watching us, they're probably shaking their heads in in bewilderment, seeing how we're treating our own home and how the ones with the means to make for necessary change are doing next to nothing about the problems we face. We're so far off from enlightenment and truly making a positive change and these stupidly-rich jackasses are going on space road trips in giant penises.

 

Little note: a would-be passenger aboard the giant space penis that Bozos funded paid a cancellation fee at the last minute of $28 million because they had a scheduling conflict that came up.

Twenty-eight million to cancel a flight at the last moment, on a space flight (that was only 11-minutes long, at that), and many people barely spend that kind of money in a couple of decades on their children..

 

The world is burning. Countries around the world, especially poor ones, are seeing the lives of their people fall apart to calamities. The pandemic continues to rage in countries that HAVE the means to do way better, but don't because the people that lead them and enable those leaders don't give a shit. Neo-liberalism and capitalism rule the day ever onward and these ideas are going to be the death-knell of humanity.

 

And these assholes could play a significant role in making things better and to think, and this would benefit them: they could still possess enormous wealth at the end of it all.

 

When that bloodsucker (Bozos) said, “I want to thank every Amazon employee and every Amazon customer because you guys paid for all of this”, he wasn't kidding, because Amazon workers worked their proverbial asses off making this scumbag and other executives at Amazon (he stepped down as CEO, big whoop) richer while being neglected and pushed to the brink. But good thing is, they're having enough (https://www.theguardian.com/.../amazon-workers-are-rising...)

 

And he's just one of these disgusting billionaires, rubbing their insane wealth in the noses of everyone else who is struggling against an increasingly unfair system. This same system is going to lead to our downfall, and few people, if anybody, with power is doing a damn thing about it. People think Biden is fixing the country and making a difference? He's giving the go-ahead for several industry projects that will only prolong the problem, defying yet more of his campaign promises. Sadly, he was still the lesser of two evils in that joke of an election.

 

Remember this: (from Journey North's "Millions and Billions: How Big is That?" https://journeynorth.org/pop/MillionBillion.html

 

Imagine someone gave you a million dollars and told you to spend $1,000 every day and come back when you ran out of money. You would return, with no money left, in three years. If someone then gave you a billion dollars and you spent $1,000 each day, you would be spending for about 2,740 years before you went broke.

 

Now multiply that number by the approximate wealth of ONE of these insanely wealthy men.

It's not about jealousy as I couldn't care less about wealthy, but rather being content. 

 

It's about what's right. These people tilt so much in their favor while the rest of us suffer. They are now going into space. Only about 1% hold the vast majority of all wealth, and they're now raping space to remind us all of this huge disparity. And the world needs them to do the right thing with so much of that money. As I mentioned, before I close: Bozos alone could spend $149 billion of his wealth and still have at least $1 billion, which is far, far, FAR in excess of what any single person could spend in thousands of years.

(Repost) Attitude Breakdowns & Comparisons of Each Federal Party in Canada

(Originally posted on Zuckerberg's evil domain)

The Liberals will make bold promises and deliver on some of them & renege on the others. They'll pat your pack and shake your hand with a nice smile and watch you walk away. However, sometimes, they'll wait for you to turn your back and stab you there, likely with a table knife. They'll virtue-signal and continue acting like they're looking out for all Canadians, and pretend they did nothing wrong in the times in which they do. They'll be maddeningly inconsistent and screw up on a bunch of golden opportunities to do the right thing. At least they didn't betray Canadians outright like the Conservatives would have done (makes me shudder sometimes when I think about this), seeing as they produced the flawed but necessary CERB (which transitioned to a modified EI). They'll claim they're feminists as well, weirdly enough. Oh and they probably won't see what they're doing sometimes because they seem to have poor optics regarding scandalous things. I should add that Trudeau will be blamed for everything and I MEAN EVERYTHING that ever happens or has happened or MAY happen – even the fall of the Roman Empire or the fact that cats will shit behind your couch no matter how well you feed the little fucker or how well you treat it, those damn ingrates...

 

 

The Conservatives will make bold promises and deliver almost none of them & actually do the polar opposite (think taxes, regulations, spending, etc.) instead. They'll pat your back but when you turn around and walk away, they'll stab you in the back with a butcher's knife. Some of these Conservatives will throw in extra cruelty by either shooting and/or stabbing you a bunch of times in mostly non-vital areas and leave you in agony. Perhaps they'll even put you in a state of slow and painful eventual death if they're more murderous than usual. Think Jason Kenney & Doug Ford – two criminals calling themselves premiers. Throw in a shit-eating grin and deflection/projection galore. Their insidious, despicable, treacherous nature is particularly true if you're old, disabled, and not rich & white. Maybe add "Christian" to that formula but frankly, nobody, even those with the qualities I just listed, are safe from this party's true nature. They don't think residential schools are bad and they own much of the media in this fucking country so we're f–– 

 

Oh shit, was I censored? So much for freedom of speech.

 

Anyway...

 

The NDP will play both sides but pretend they're looking out for us, the layperson, all the while. They'll vote on something that should be done, on half-measures that the Liberals propose, and other variably populist proposals one minute, then blast it as treacherous and anti-Canadian the next. They'll pat your back and do nothing more than that, unless you're John Horgan in B.C in which he'll stab you in the back and almost completely abandon you to your fate. Oh and they'll use Conservative tactics like gaslighting and virtue-signalling (heh, they all do now that I mention it) in their social media posts, and never actually address issues with their platform. Don't read their twitter feeds if you don't want to feel like they've abandoned their platform and YOU.

 

The Bloc Quebecois will fixate almost entirely on Quebec, whose population (to some extent) wants to separate from the rest of the country. They'll do almost nothing if it doesn't involve Quebec somehow. They'll agree with the Liberals when it suits them (like the NDP does) but otherwise, they don't give a flying fuck about anyone else as long as it concerns Quebec. They'll use a butter knife to spread mayonnaise on their pulled-pork sandwiches, or a spoon to scoop the same stuff into their poutine. They'll stab you in the back with that same butter knife, dirty or no, as long as you're from Quebec. They're feckless and inconsequential to the rest of the country.

 

The Green Party will hardly do anything because 1) they are too busy with infighting over the Israel-Palestine conflict and alleged sexism & racism within their ranks, and 2) they've only ever achieved two, maybe THREE MP's in the House of Commons at any given point in their time as a party. They'll use a wood chip and rub it on your skin to give you a sliver or two, then tell you that you're a racist & sexist if you protest. They claim to care about the environment, though. 

 

 

The People's Party will whine and moan about how they should be in charge but "The Regime" is holding them back. They won't do much of anything to anyone because they got a paltry <1% of the vote in the 2019 election. They're a more honest Conservative party in essence but because they're so ineffective at gaining a political foothold, they'll have a hard time stabbing people in the back like the Conservatives do on a regular basis and in the same scale. They'll get themselves arrested in a Conservative-led province, blame the FEDERAL Liberals (for whatever fucking demented reason?), go on some right-wing asshole's TV-program/Podcast/some-such and whine like the (mostly) irrelevant man-babies that they are. Oh and they will hide their white-supremacist bona-fides all the while, oops.

 

 

The Independents hardly exist & don't have any real power in the federal elections but they'll stab each other in the back whenever it suits their individual needs. One of them (me, at least, I was in the 2019 election) will have done something futile in one election: cast a protest vote. I have a couple of knives to my name but I'd rather stab an inanimate object than a person kthnxbi.

/fin

(Originally Off-Site) My Breakdown of the Federal Parties of Canada

Here's my honest breakdown of the parties in this country (Federal), ordered by the results of the 2019 election. I ramble a lot so be aware of that. Won't have the best grammar ever but that's not what was important here. The views represented below are entirely my own, represented only by my experiences and what I've heard/read about these parties.

 

Without further ado...

 

Liberals = Inconsistent

 

Want to please everyone but spreads themselves too thin doing so; leader lives for attention; neoliberal economics but fine elsewhere; spend like crazy under Trudeau (though they were forced to spend a lot during this pandemic, let's be honest here); poor optics (WE Scandal [just plain poor optics on this one], SNC-Lavalin Affair, Aga Khan Scandal, Blackface Scandal [don't really care personally as it was about 20 years ago and the people in the incriminating photo have come out and said it was all in the name of fun]). Received FIVE YEARS worth of illegal donations from SNC-Lavalin. A bit of cronyism. Inception levels of inconsistency; for example, they claim to be for fighting climate change but then they support O&G expansion projects but on THAT front they decline some pipelines but approve others so they're at least two-levels of inconsistent on this very topic alone...*takes a breath* The alternatives though are either awful (see the next party below) or just not viable enough at this time to consider voting for (pretty much anyone else)

 

On the other hand...

 

They handled the pandemic fairly well all things considered (should have shut down incoming air travel, if only for a short period); Trudeau is compared too much to his father even though they're kind of different, and they can never please everyone (so they should STOP TRYING!). Justin is a bit stingy with criticism (to be fair, a lot of what he gets is straight bullshit so how can you blame him?). Justin gets attacked so often in such crazy ways that I'm often left bewildered and (trust me this really sucks) I'm often forced to defend him from the bullshit people constantly fling in his direction. They're not Conservative and thus that's a huge benefit in their favour, no questions fucking asked.

 

Conservatives = Treacherous & Criminal

 

Talks about "reigning in spending" and lowering the deficit all the time, but do the exact opposite every fucking time they hold office ANYWHERE; terrible leadership that makes me cringe; would be more likely to leave us all to the lurch instead of helping us; spreads conspiracy theories and shitposts; all bark and no bite; cronyism galore; Candice Bergen, Pierre Poill–PP!; they like TRUMP STYLE POLITICS! Leading into Harper's reign of terror, the more reasonable Conservatives merged with the batshit crazy Reform party and became a horrific hybrid mutant ever since. Could have prevented or at least changed (to whatever extent I do not know) the bullshit in the equalization payments system but nope, and here we are with a divisive system; SHAMELESS neoliberalism and completely bonkers everywhere else (sometimes they accept LGBTQ+, sometimes they don't...); Stephen Harper still kind of runs the party from the shadows (to what extent I don't think we'll ever really know); will never recover from Harper IMO. Wanted to spend $60 billion on outdated fighter jets; inconsequential "Canadian Action Plan"; lives on division between the West and the East. This party gave us two completely imbecilic and criminal scumbags running, right at the moment of this writing, two separate provinces: the egg salad sammich-loving dingus known as Doug Ford (dubiously running Ontario), and the horrendously criminal and borderline-fascistic Jason Kenney (hard at work in running Alberta into the ground). Thinking of this party irks me to an extent that you wouldn't believe...

But wait, there's more!

 

Enjoys an alliance with "Canada Proud" hate groups that DIRECTLY BENEFITS THEM! Loves cutting social programs we all pay into but makes us more beholden to private industry when the party guts these same services or sells them out. Hates taxes (for themselves and their rich buddies) but otherwise loves them (for the rest of us). They've shown in every province they run (into the ground) that they have no earthly clue what the hell they're doing in response to COVID-19 and would rather put the economy ahead of your fucking health; if they hadn't privatized our former world-renowned vaccine production facilities (Connaught Labs) we'd likely be far better off than we are now so FUCK THIS PARTY! Oh and don't forget actually enacting the long-debated FIPA, which gives China a trade advantage on Canada and a means to sue us more easily when their investments are threatened.

 

They uh...had a transit tax rebate that actually managed to encourage people to use public transit to some degree? That was killed under Trudeau for some frustrating reason. Mulroney, who still sucked overall, declared a number of national parks to be protected land (Haida Gwaii is one of them). I really don't know what else to say that is positive about this party because they're a bunch of criminal, disgusting scumbags.

 

Bloc Quebecois = Single-Minded

 

Only really cares about Quebec and her interests, and how the fuck did they get in third place. What do they really DO for the country as a whole? They straight embarrassed the NDP by attaining third-party status. Dafuq?

 

Uh...what good do they do? They perpetuate the divide between East and West so I don't care for this party.

 

NDP = Hopeless

 

Have terrible messaging; engages in attack politics not unlike the CPC; can't provide solid solutions; leader squanders his position most of the time; leader votes 'yes' on many Liberal causes/proposals, but virtue signals with 'criticisms' elsewhere, and this sends mixed signals to everyone else; no unity with provincial chapters; might never achieve what Jack Layton did in 2011 at this rate; finally, is Singh actually a socially-liberal Conservative plant?!

 

Jack Layton was a pretty cool guy in the end (R.I.P.); they came up with our healthcare system thanks to Tommy Douglas (voted "Greatest Canadian" in the mid-2000's); can actually be PROGRESSIVE (if they unified better and actually had the solutions to back it up), and they are currently in a position to hold Trudeau's cabinet to a higher standard although they don't often do this much to the chagrin of many.

 

Green = Neutered

 

They have no chance, we never get to hear their platform unless the stars are aligned right, and are hopelessly outnumbered and outgunned with just two seats in Parliament. Elizabeth May can't seem to think straight for more than five seconds. Canada's Texas thinks these people are just hippies so you can't count on a reliable handful of votes from them. Has only a couple of good (and necessary) ideas but very few practical ones. A crippling degree of instability within their ranks, coupled with what few political players they actually have in the game, will hurt this party in the long term.

 

They stand for the environment. Actually showed solidarity with protestors standing up for indigenous rights. Wants to push for better renewable energy production. Was for the legalization of dope before pretty much anyone else.

 

Independent = Pointless

 

Nothing will ever happen here but I guess I personally fall here because I personally cast a protest vote in the 2019 election. Not next time, though.

 

If enough people vote independently (or do what I did in 2019 and cast protest votes) then maybe, in some alternate universe, it might shake up our elections enough that some people take notice? Won't hold my breath on this approach, though. After all, who is going to notice? This won't get the ones in power quaking in their boots any time soon.

 

People's Party = Idiotic

 

Haha, Maxime Bernier started this because he was rejected by the CPC in his leadership bid, his results were pitiful; a more fringe CPC overall. Really just a redundant party, if only a bit more honest somehow than the CPC is in terms of their economic positions. Appears to be staffed by active racists or 'former' racists and I'm not fucking kidding on this one.

 

I don't know what good they did, honestly. Just a slightly-altered copy of the CPC.

To The Anti-Vaccination Crowd

I've been exposed to a lot of anti-vaccination arguments and proponents over the years, and it has only kicked into high gear since this pandemic started. Then you have the vaccines themselves becoming more & more widely available to the public, and it appears that the contrarian, "rebellious" nay-sayers pour out of the woodwork to match the pace. When you consider how wrong their arguments tend to be, you get the feeling that they're being quite desperate to convince others that they're right.

Back up your anti-vaccination position with actual facts and not with the disingenuous drivel pushed by some opportunistic conspiracy-theorist hack (especially if they were, or even currently, a doctor with a career behind them). Oh and did you solidify your stance by reading materials available at the library and not on some unverified website that links to some far-right advocacy or anti-science organization? Please provide your sources in your arguments.

Contrary to my dismissal above, there are proper citations on the internet so they can be web-based, like say, Harvard Medical School showing a study of theirs that they publish on one of their websites (such as this one: Harvard Health Publishing - https://www.health.harvard.edu/) . That sort of example is fine because HMS is a routinely scrutinized and accredited institution, and they publish their own studies & reports that are usually peer-reviewed and carried out by groups of researchers & their assistants. Fact-checkers, such as Snopes, tend to work as well because they use ACTUAL CITATIONS to back up their fact-checking endeavors, citing articles based on research throughout their own works.

However, if it's some dime-a-dozen blog or editorial (mind you, what you're reading now is pretty much an editorial) where a person goes on this agenda-driven screed against getting vaccinated, and the best they can do is show videos from some anti-science dimwit(s) or other unverifiable sources then I'm afraid that just won't work. Hell, I have actually seen polemics that didn't even contain a single citation. I know such works still, somehow, manage to convince people out there who certainly don't think the way I do, but if you're going to defend a position that can lead to people getting unnecessarily infected with this virus, and even killed or debilitated as a result, then you have a lot of explaining to do. I don't think that what I demand of you when you try to defend your position to me is asking for a whole lot. If there's actual research out there that backs up your anti-vaccination argument, specifically those that we're getting right now, then share that research by all means.

In short...

If you can satisfy my expectations then you may, to some extent at least, begin to convince me. After all, I used to be in that camp years ago and stopped thinking that way when I was exposed to, you know, FACTS!

But otherwise if you really don't want a vaccine then don't get it as that is your choice to make. However, if you can't meet or exceed my expectations of you when you try to justify your stance to me, then you're absolutely wasting your time and that would be better spent elsewhere. And you'll show that I don't need to take you at all seriously. Back up your potentially dangerous (moreso than getting vaccinated, that's for sure) position with solid facts and then we'll talk, okay anti-vaxxers?

The Bill C-10 Controversy

So I read the summary of this controversial Bill C-10, and here's my take:

The people braying about how it's "censorship"...they're exaggerating. And those exaggerations are backed by...Conservative/Right-Wing voices. Politicians and critics, "journalists", lawmakers, academics, everyone who is a right-leaning fuckwit, is crying about the bill. And the gist of their argument is this:

 

It makes room for censorship of individual expression.

 

And that's because of the ambiguity that was left in the bill. This argument they're pushing is what's called a "slippery slope" fallacy. All that the Bill C-10 does its AMEND current broadcasting regulations to include streaming services, and the likes of YouTube and TikTok, in promoting Canadian content and to try to make their programming more accessible to minority groups, including the disabled (such as myself). 

 

You see, these dishonest critics are making a mountain of a molehill. They're doing it because they don't expect damn near anyone who they're trying to appeal to to actually READ THE BILL ITSELF, because it's a long document and isn't fucking interesting to read. Well, it's a legal document made to enact legal and regulatory change, so of course it won't be interesting to read. But it's informative because you know what it's meant to do.

 

Why are the Conservative-types doing this? Because they're contrarian assholes, that's why. Imagine if you will, the Conservatives wanted to make their own bill akin to Bill C-10, which AMENDS current regulations regarding broadcasting. These dishonest assholes in our media, regardless of medium (social media, TV media, print media, etc.), would praise it to the heavens. 

 

This is sociopolitical theatre, people. It's showmanship. They think their voters — the people who see things a certain way that benefits these charlatans and opportunists — are too uneducated and impulsive to challenge their divisive (and frankly distracting, likely from their real agendas, whatever they may be) machinations. And the sad thing is that they're right. This is a demonstrable and unfortunate FACT in sociopolitical discourse time and time again. And it's hurting us all in the end.

 

Don't worry about Bill C-10. Technically, all regulations and laws are fucking exploitable anyway, and that's kind of the point to begin with. Think for yourself instead of going with the reactionary bullshit that's crying about so-called "censorship" being foisted upon us with this bill. That's not what it does at all. The best that the people who are pushing this narrative have got to support their argument is that it's somewhat ambiguous in what scope of content on these newly-amended platforms (Netflix Canada, Amazon Prime, TikTok, YouTube, etc.) will be regulated. They don't even really try to substantiate anything, relying only on a slippery slope fallacy that it MIGHT lead to censorship of content.

 

Sometimes you just want to blast yourself into space somewhere and get away from all of this noise.

The Federal Liberals and Their (Spineless, Milquetoast) 2021 Budget

An overwhelming majority of MPs and other political cretins happened to vote for Universal Basic Income. 491-85 in favour. They even talked about it in their recent conferences. People are clamoring for a chance at a higher standard of living. A safety net that can keep people from going into abject poverty. A chance to do what they REALLY want to do rather than work dead-end fucking shit jobs, or keep afloat while various job markets fluctuate as they always do under (mostly) unfettered capitalism.

So frustrated, but here goes... 

 

The budget is being doled out today  and UBI is nowhere to be found. Yeah, a no-strings-attached basic income would cost somewhere around $85 billion annually. That's a lot. But think of all the people spending money in this country. Think of all the people lifted out of homelessness. Think of people being able to leverage their employment situations to their benefit by holding out for a better opportunity instead of going for whatever happens to be available because of desperation. Based on a 2013 study (it has definitely gone up since then but I can't find more recent information), poverty costs the country up to 89$ billion a year. With the pandemic and several provinces hurting economically (particularly Alberta, regardless of the pandemic), that figure would have to be considerably higher). Just going by the 2013 number (found here: https://evidencenetwork.ca/poverty-costs-canada-billions-of-dollars-every-year/), implementing an annual UBI would cost less than not doing it at all. 

 

Look at the findings found here (https://cwp-csp.ca/poverty/the-cost-of-poverty/): - "For example, a recent report from Ontario states that poverty costs the government (in collaboration with the federal government) between $10.4 billion and $13.1 billion a year." - "Nova Scotia recently declared that poverty costs the province (including governmental, societal, and individual costs) $2.4 billion per year." - "Saskatchewan pays up to $3.8 billion per year on poverty as a whole, including $2.6 billion in absent taxes and contributions to the GDP." - "In British Columbia, the government spends between $8.1 and $9.2 billion on poverty." UBI can dramatically decrease ALL OF THIS! WHY IS THIS SUCH A FUCKING ISSUE!? 

 

 Oh and no increase to the GST is on the horizon. Oh no, Garrett is advocating for a tax increase! Well, those are for Goods & Services; you know, sales taxes and the like. You buy something, and a tax is added. Buy a cup of coffee at (god forbid) Timmy's, and GST goes back to our public offices. Even a 1-3% increase would produce much more money that would go toward the programs that money is meant to fund. Or at the very least, they should, right? Oh and a slightly increased GST cheque for low-income Canadians would occur, too. It would offset a bit more of the losses from funding UBI. But it would also pay for itself over time (not the same fiscal year as implementation, mind). 

 

To quote:

 

"Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had previously signalled his lack of enthusiasm for UBI, stating that the costly program is not at the top of his list amid the COVID-19 pandemic. 

 

“Obviously COVID has exposed weaknesses in our country where vulnerable people are continuing to slip through the cracks,” he told reporters when pressed about the program in recent weeks. 

 

“We will have conversations about next steps as well but our focus is very much on what we need to do to control COVID-19.” 

 

Trudeau’s sentiment transferred into the budget document, which makes no mention of the program."

For more of that, read the following: https://globalnews.ca/news/7770067/canada-budget-2021-whats-missing-liberal-federal/

 

Yeah, yeah, I know it's Global, but they're the only ones RIGHT NOW that have an article about this half-rate budget that's being released TODAY. 

 

Nothing on pharmacare, either. Yes, the NDP tried to push a federal solution rather than a provincial one, and that one crashed and burned. They still harp on that loss, but they're just being obtuse as to why it failed to pass. No wealth tax. Yeah, the fucking rich have gotten OBSCENELY RICHER through this damned pandemic, and the Liberals won't take advantage of that goldmine? Holy shit man, and people probably wonder why I don't really like the Liberals, either. They're just a less ruthless flavour of Neoliberal as far as I am concerned. 

 

Back to the subject, the only thing the Liberals are willing to do is implement a tax on the sales of superfluous goodies like yachts, personal jets, and other crazy shit the rich sometimes buy (and then sell or default on when they lose their precious bounty). Oh boy, that's not going to be exploitable at all...

 

I'll give it to them this, and only this: even though there's no mention of any of these things in the budget, particularly UBI, doesn't mean it won't see further discussion or even consideration. It has such overwhelming support that the Liberals would be committing political suicide to not even consider implementing it at all. Another instance of the Liberals reneging on a promise. The Conservatives are even worse than that, but that's a given because that's always the case. With the Liberals, it's far more frustrating.

 

I won't vote for a fucking party that seems to have their heads up their asses. They think they're invincible. THIS IS WHY I DON'T LIKE MAJORITY GOVERNMENTS! 

 

Feckless...milquetoast...inconsistent...smug... Now does anyone understand why I don't like BOTH the Liberals AND the treacherous CON(job)servatives? Such a missed opportunity. Such a bold-faced example of "playing it safe." Shitty priorities! To think that neither of the alternatives are viable (or in the case of the pathetic "People's Party of Canada", not even worth a vote). So frustrating and disappointing. Fucking DOLTS!!!