Here's health unto the union, which is very strong they say
Here's health unto the union, which is very strong they say
I took a bunch of candy from my daughter this Halloween and, I swear to God, she looked at me and said “daddy, what kind of ideology would allow a grown man to take candy from a tiny, adorable child”, and I swear to God I started crying and Adam Smith came back from the dead and we all had a group hug and I gave her the candy back even though it was just one Smartie (Smarty?) from a whole pack and we cried and we laughed together. This really happened.
Kim got there a half-month earlier than me, as usual, but I’m going to write about coal and shit anyway.
Sleepy Joe is sleeping at some COPD conference this week, a cartoon bubble above his nose popping for a couple seconds so he can scream “MARKET SOLUTIONS” at full volume before falling asleep again. For the last time? Who knows. Someone find a Poke Flute and move this fucker out of the way. Let the rest of us eat haggis and tatties and think about TransAlta, a company that owns some power plants. The power plant business is a good one! Pulling down a billion in EBITDA per year, more or less, with $700m in fun money just sitting in the bank. A company that needs no help, but we should help immediately.
(Read all of this with some neon above your head, bent and formed and shock pink. It reads, and should read at all times, BARRING REVOLUTION, with an ellipsis at the end). When we talk about “Just Transition” trademark or “Green New Deal” registered, TransAlta is what we should be talking about. In mid-October the company, a place that turns coal into PornHub for Canadians, Americans, and Australians, announced it wants to get out of the coal business. They mine it, they ship it, and they burn it. A vertically integrated hill-to-bookmark folder electrified conglomerate, the peak of an industry on the cutting edge in 1765 delivering all the smut and Squid Games person could ask for. And they want to stop! To build windmills! That’s good!
Every one of those coal miners they might lay off, everyone in the power plants they planned to convert to natural gas, everything they’re about to shut down and everyone effected by this pivot to green energy should be loudly and completely smothered in the loving embrace of the welfare state. The coal miners should have their mortgage covered until they can retrain or be rehired in a different position or company. That training should be paid for. All those windmills should be nearly risk free for a period of time. Natural gas producers losing out on selling to TransAlta should be compensated. A red carpet should be rolled out reaching from Coleman, Alberta all the way to Ottawa, lined with shiny new Lauriers. Shovel Canadian dollars into the gaping maw of TransAlta, dividends be damned. It doesn’t matter if half the Saudi Royal Family gets our tax dollars and hire a new local boy to be an ottoman, pay the cost for a decade and shout it from the rooftops - this is what you get in Canada if you go green at the expense of your high carbon model. It’s the fucking PowerBall and, baby, you won it. Don’t delay, slots for the next giveaway are limited!
We don’t have a world war going on (yet) so there aren’t a bunch of guns just laying around, there aren’t a bunch of draft-produced NCOs being discharged into a simmering radical soup, and the treat cannon is intentionally aimed at the North American gullet to soothe our collective jimmies. Revolution needs rustled jimmies! We don’t have enough rustled jimmies or trained militia armed to the teeth and hungry for blood. So, we should try and seize the money printer to avoid disaster.
The ruling class is gearing up for blood. The global south-ish, the global, uh…belt? The equatorial masses being turned into human sous vide need to go somewhere and, bucko, they’re gonna find a wall and a bullet waiting for them here. The best shot we have is to feed Mr. Creosote, fill these swollen fuckers till they burst with our fake money. So long as they’re buying yachts maybe they’ll let us save the planet.
When the bill comes due maybe the biosphere will be in okay shape and we can fight about whatever comes next. Right now, I’m looking for low hanging fruit. Our ladders aren’t high enough to reach the good stuff on the top fronds and the saws at the bottom make us lose a rung every year. They’re mechanized, they’re organized, and all we can do is drown them on the balance sheet. What use is fiat currency if you can’t huck money at a predator and use the bills to sop their drool.
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🤳The price of oil is (spins big wheel) up! Let’s shoot ourselves in the dong!
🥪Walk around your neighbourhood and wonder which businesses aren’t paying their taxes.
🍨Red-headed stepchild of the UCP tries again, and this time he means it!
🍱Sex Pest pitches pint! Pictures prove pinot provenance!
🍖COVID shortages are more accurately described as “I will never raise your wage” shortages.
🦊You can be the minister of a whole department and never actually know what goes on there. It’s true!
🦜There was a Saskatoon school strike.
☂️Canadian learns consequences in wrong country, leading to public outcry.
🍍The heat is already here to kill us.
🩰Nobody deserves a union more than American healthcare vampires.
🌫Except maybe sex workers.
🦦Or maybe freelancers.
🐟And maybe laywers who dare win lawsuits against oil companies.
🌭This might be the only good use of “white lady does unusual thing, give her attention”.
📉Sandy Garassino is on the Progress Report to comment on a grifter doing some grimes.
🎧Anti-Girlboss invites Tyler Shipley onto the show to talk about the militarism of the season.
🔇Tech Won’t Save us explains why the Metaverse is stupid as hell.
🎚️I’m on the phone again talking about orphan wells.
🐚Want to help ACORN in Alberta put foot to some landlord ass? Click here to find out how.
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Our editor is Clinton Hallahan. Newsletter subject lines are stolen from these songs.
Thanks for the shoutout!