I confess, making it to the 3:27 mark was a real effort, one fortified by a pre-dinner libation(s) last evening. However, eventually I steeled myself to watch the remaining minute, the entire video experience leaving me feeling a tad bruised. The following production is unbelievably cheesy but at the same
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Scripturient: No, Brian Hasn’t Done Any of That!
You probably got one of these disinformation campaign cards in your mail this week. It says that Brian Saunderson and Doug “Jabba the Hutt” Ford are “putting money in your pocket.” And then it lists three things Ford did by himself without Brian’s help. Or input. Or even vote because,
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Pandemic Amnesia
Someone told me that we need to adapt to Covid faster, and get used to masks and checking air quality much faster for our own survival. They think our problem is our inability to adapt to this new environment. I said that I think we have adapted quickly, but we’ve done
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Shree Paradkar laments the folly of making the same mistakes over and over again throughout the course of a continuing pandemic, while Crawford Kilian offers his own list of lessons we should have learned by now. And Andrew Nikiforuk provides some suggestions
Continue readingScripturient: Utter Disrespect for Local Media and Citizens
Recently, CollingwoodToday ran a six-part series asking all members of council to express — without editing or Berman’s censorship “fact-checking” — their thoughts on what they had done on council, what they hoped to do, what challenges they faced, what they thought was their “enduring” legacy (stop laughing!) and whether
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: On The Use & Abuse Of History
A typical account of history is presented in the video linked below, and here are some reflections on it, and on the general practice, or malpractice, of professional historians, and scholars and intellectuals broadly. As Noam Chomsky has said, the major media portray themselves as free and unbiased media, but
Continue readingThe Cracked Crystal Ball II: The "Free Alberta Strategy"
I'll forgive people elsewhere in Canada who might be wondering what the hell is going on in Alberta. A little over a year ago, we were treated to the spectacle of a bunch of Alberta MPs and other luminaries signing the Buffalo Declaration, and today, we get "The Free Alberta
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Don Braid discusses how Alberta’s health care system and polity are both collapsing under the weight of a UCP government which has utterly failed to protect either from readily-preventable damage. And Emily Pasiuk reports on Jason Kenney’s continued excuses for letting COVID-19 run
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: Noam Chomsky – On The US and Global Stability
Noam Chomsky is 92 years old, yet his grasp of world and US politics remains a force to be reckoned with. “The U.S. always portrays itself as the greatest force on the planet for peace, justice, human rights, racial equality, etc. Polls tell us that most other nations
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: Who To Trust: The Short Answer
Who to trust? That is always a perennial question, and particularly now, when not only government, corporations, politicians and corporate and state media have repeatedly been shown to have lied, grossly distorted or concealed the truth, and engaged in deceitful PR and propaganda; but also, alternative and progressive media, along
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Amy Goodman and Denis Moynihan highlight how inequitable access to vaccines around the globe increases the risk of variants which will hurt everybody. Charles Schmidt takes note of the work being done to track variants – but also the massive blind spots which
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: Conspiracy Theory Revisited
We should remember that the cult of authority, the cult of obedience, and the cult of conformity, are profoundly anti-intellectual, anti-science, anti-empirical, and anti-democratic, as well as extremely dangerous. And these three cults now reign supreme across the Western world, as Western societies close down, having imported the authoritarian model
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: Historical Bias Is The Norm: An Example – The Real Origins of The Renaissance
In the generally well-made history documentary, 1,000 AD – A Tour of Europe (a History Time, YouTuber video linked below) at just 13 minutes in, there is already one giant, elephant-sized error – a common one, which is almost universal among historians of the West. Examining this one common, seismic
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: Debunking the anti-vaxxer rhetoric
Why the anti-vaxxer argument does not hold up: That is to say, why the vitriolic proponents of forced covid vaccines are categorically in the wrong Here is my response to a hostile response to what had been an open and respectful discussion – certainly not on Big Tech-controlled social media,
Continue readingExcited Delirium: Covid Journal, November 18, 2020
Defile! Defile! Trump and his team are probably resorting to a different kind of ‘defile’ (as in shredding documents before Biden’s team takes over), but they’re also rushing to assault any remaining institutions that they haven’t already laid their hands on. Example: laying bare the Arctic refuge for oil and
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: OPCW Scandal Reveals Deep Systemic Corruption of Western Elite, the Mainstream & Alternative Media, & the Centre, the Right & the Left
Here is a devastating critique of the mainstream, major media, the “alternative” or “progressive” media, the liberal “centrists” and the left. See my essays on the media and the left, on my blog on WordPress, for further analysis. Check your sources, read widely as well as deeply, and question everything
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: Populism, Elitism & Propaganda: The Continuing Failure of Liberals, Progressives & the Left
As I have been saying: accepting the elitist derogatory and vilifying use of the term populism as a synonym for all that is evil in the world is playing into the hands of the plutocrats. Yet, leading figures, groups and media sources among progressives, liberals and the left fell for
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: The Failure of Propaganda, The Crisis of Legitimacy, and The Resort to Fascism
The propaganda is hitting Goebbels level, it is getting that obvious and stark. The elite are losing the propaganda war – hence, the increasingly shrill and panicked, desperate measures. Keep up the dissidence; speak truth to the people. But do know this, which is critical to understand. We need to
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: The War On Democracy
(Comment below after listening to the most important three minutes of info you are likely to hear in decades, or have likely ever heard. Noam Chomsky on The Crisis Of Democracy, via Spotify, is linked below. But note this important synopsis of my political analysis, which pretty much accords with Chomsky’s,
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: New Normal Is A Continuation Of The Old War Machine – For The Common Good, Of Course
The Democrats face the same problem as the Republicans – they are corrupt, and owned by Wall St. That includes, of course, the big banks, Big Oil, Big Tech, the military industrial complex & the war machine, & Big Pharma, naturally. The new official enemy is a virus, we are
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