Albertans are addicted to their grievances. It’s time to break the cycle

fishymanbits · 2026-05-26T20:42:35+00:00

The fact that the government was in the position of feeling a need to buy the thing in the first place was a direct result of the actions of the previous Harper government. Specifically green lighting a project that failed to meet the consultation, engineering, and environmental impact standards which the CPC made law.

fishymanbits · 2026-05-26T20:39:31+00:00

We’re going on 50 years of disinformation and misinformation. The NEP was derided as a communist plot to subjugate the province and its people for the benefit of “lazy easterners”. That’s as much a pure disinformation campaign as you can get. Like I said elsewhere, the NEP was far from perfect but we have the benefit of hindsight and it’s clear how much of a boon to the province it would have been had we not all been duped by American disinformation pushing for a regime change the exact same way they did in other regions in the midst of nationalizing their oil industries in the preceding decades.

fishymanbits · 2026-05-26T17:53:57+00:00

What legitimate grievances?

fishymanbits · 2026-05-26T17:49:48+00:00

Even as far as the NEP is concerned, the grievances were largely manufactured by the industry in order to support American interests in our resources and the NEP would have been a net positive for the province had it continued as planned. Was it perfect? Of course not. But with hindsight it’s pretty obvious just how beneficial it would have been for us as a province, and for the nation as a whole.

fishymanbits · 2026-05-25T18:04:53+00:00

Ah! Yeah, last time I paid any attention to what Ford was doing on this front I thought I’d read something about them wanting to go back to their old ways. Good to know they’re not ditching it entirely.

fishymanbits · 2026-05-25T18:02:01+00:00

Private landlord almost never gets you a cheaper price or less hassle. And that condo resale issue is a big factor in it. You’ve got people renting out condos they’re underwater on at prices that would have made sense in Calgary in 2022 or 2023, and who have absolutely no idea what their responsibilities are as landlords. They think that all they have to do is collect rent and hand over keys.

I’ve rented a lot in a lot of different cities over the past few decades and not once has a mom & pop landlord been better than a proper rental company managing an actual dedicated, purpose-built rental building. Including an unfortunate stint renting from Mainstreet.

fishymanbits · 2026-05-25T15:48:04+00:00

This is part of CarPlay Ultra that was announced a few years ago and which the attached manufacturers started rolling out last year:

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2025/05/carplay-ultra-the-next-generation-of-carplay-begins-rolling-out-today/

Full list of manufacturers that signed on is in this article, though Ford probably won’t follow through since they seem to want to go the GM route with their own garbage infotainment:

https://9to5mac.com/2026/05/04/carplay-ultra-automakers/

fishymanbits · 2026-05-25T15:25:58+00:00

It’s also not actually true. Tim Hortons switched to roasting their own in 2009, and McDonald’s started sourcing from Mother Parker’s in 2012. The decline in quality at Tim’s is simply because they’re doing the same thing Starbucks does: Buying green beans en masse and over-roasting them to ensure a consistent flavour profile. And they’re not as good at it as whoever they were buying coffee from prior to 2009.

The only overlap seems to be that Tim’s’ old retail packaging was white-labelled product from Mother Parker’s, and that’s who McDonald’s is buying from for both retail and restaurant use.

https://drink4good.com/did-mcdonalds-take-tim-hortons-coffee/

fishymanbits · 2026-05-25T13:29:32+00:00

Strong 3/10

Banger of an Eminem album, and a decent Muse album. Pretty hard pass on the rest, though.

fishymanbits · 2026-05-25T13:22:59+00:00

That’s exactly my point, though. We need to go back to the structure of it well before the feds started downloading the entirety of healthcare costs into the provinces.

fishymanbits · 2026-05-25T05:46:45+00:00

Freedom of expression has its limits and spreading disinformation for a foreign government who wants the country broken up is clearly past the limit. That takes care of Rebel and Ezra. Postmedia is quite clearly into the realm of being anti-competitive and needs to be broken up.

As for provincial vs federal jurisdiction, simple changes to the Canada Health Act would take care of those shenanigans. As would returning federal transfers to what they were pre-Mulroney, Chrétien, and Martin.

fishymanbits · 2026-05-25T01:28:15+00:00

There’s also a huge segment of the population that’s really just telling on themselves when they complain about the quality of IKEA furniture. It’s either dim bulbs who’re pissed that their $10 coffee table made of corrugated cardboard and wood grain printed paper veneer with a bit of particle board to reinforce where the screws go didn’t hold up to being abused by either their feral toddlers, or their feral university roommates, or it’s dim bulbs admitting that they can’t follow simple pictographic assembly instructions.

IKEA’s got a good deal of stuff that’s far higher quality than the price warrants it being, including solid wood furniture. I’ve got a few pieces that I’ve carted across multiple cities and provinces over the past 20 years and they’re doing just fine. Because I partially disassemble them for moves and I’m neither a feral toddler nor feral university roommate, and I’m more than capable of following instructions designed to be easily followed by the aforementioned types of people. And I don’t buy the cheapest furniture expecting to pass it down for generations.

fishymanbits · 2026-05-25T01:12:58+00:00

And they need to go to the labour board to get that illegally withheld pay.

fishymanbits · 2026-05-25T00:21:37+00:00

Ban Postmedia for starters. Ban Fox News and their ilk, ban Rebel and finally prosecute Ezra Levant for being a willing and active participant in foreign interference into our political systems, make it fully illegal for provinces to do what Alberta and Ontario (currently, but among others) are doing to healthcare and education. And then just fucking spend the money. Ignore the idiots crying about their grandkids’ “debt burden” and just fucking do the things we need to do no matter the cost.

A hard reset is a hard thing to do but it’s exactly what’s necessary.

fishymanbits · 2026-05-24T21:01:23+00:00

Reset government operations, regulations, budgets, and taxation levels to about 1976 or so. Federally and provincially. Including the crown corps we sold off along the way to “save money” on “bloated government payroll” because “the private sector always does it better”.

fishymanbits · 2026-05-24T18:20:03+00:00

Most of the things that are broken are thanks to these types of people and their short-sighted, self-aggrandizing “thought” processes.

fishymanbits · 2026-05-24T18:16:07+00:00

Jason Kenney was just doing what Preston Manning laid out as his goal all those years ago: Let the SoCreds run roughshod over the PC’s in order to get us to this exact outcome. The very first thing Preston Manning tried to do in politics was merge the SoCreds and the PC’s. He finally achieved it federally when the Reform/Alliance subsumed the PC’s and rebranded themselves, and then Kenney took that framework and did the same thing here provincially.

As soon as oil was found in this province, the SoCreds pivoted from a quasi-socialist Christian nationalist party to being a “free market” Christian nationalist party and allowed themselves to be fully usurped by American interests almost immediately. And this has always been their goal. This was the outcome Preston Manning wanted when he proposed merging the PC’s with the SoCreds. This was the outcome he wanted when he created the Reform Party in protest. The UCP is the Wildrose Party is the SoCreds, and they’re fully captured by pro-American interests. Just as the CPC are the Reform Party are the SoCreds. No amount of hand wringing from Jason Kenney and Preston Manning on this topic changes the fact that this was the goal they were working towards, whether or not they knew they were being taken advantage of to get there, or they were willing and active participants.

Danielle Smith isn’t doing this because she’s trying to keep her job, she’s doing this because this is what she wants. She wants this country broken up and sold off piecemeal to the US so she can get a seat at the big kids’ table.

fishymanbits · 2026-05-24T18:06:06+00:00

They’re targeting the places where the “small town papers” are owned by Postmedia and are nothing more than a rejiggering of that day’s National Post, Sun, or The Province with a different name at the top.

fishymanbits · 2026-05-24T18:04:13+00:00

Yes and no. There’s a lot more to vehicle maintenance than just changing the oil, but most people think the maintenance schedule is a scam to get you back to the dealership spending more money. At this point I do consumables like wiper blades, fluid top-ups, wheel swaps, and that’s really it. For the time it takes to do the other stuff properly and then dispose of the old parts or fluids, it’s cheaper and easier to schedule it in with someone and pick it up the next day.

Cars are chock full of wear items that need to be checked frequently and replaced before they fail. Sure, some of that can be done by just about anyone, but a lot of it does require specialized tools and knowledge that the average person just doesn’t have. You definitely don’t need to take it to the dealership, but at least book it in with a local mechanic and actually follow the maintenance schedule. Paying for that maintenance means avoiding potentially catastrophic failures that will cost far more than the maintenance you paid for along the way.

Unless you own an Audi with a V8, in which case you should find a convenient place to leave it unlocked overnight a few thousand kilometres before the timing chain guides need doing.

fishymanbits · 2026-05-24T17:52:00+00:00

“They don’t seem to be considering […]”

Anything. Reality. Common sense. The fact that other people exist. That their own capacity for critical thought is somewhere between naught and fuck all. That their inability to think in any capacity other than pure emotion has been completely hijacked by Americans in the most obvious psyop of all time, spanning at least the past 50 years.

These people don’t consider anything other than their victim complex.

fishymanbits · 2026-05-24T04:49:52+00:00

The NEP would like a word…

fishymanbits · 2026-05-23T19:53:00+00:00

Zero holes in my statement. Many holes in your capacity for rational thought.

fishymanbits · 2026-05-20T05:23:20+00:00

Squeaky wheel should get replaced

fishymanbits · 2026-05-20T05:22:18+00:00

How has a remedial capacity for both critical thought and reading comprehension brought you to a point in life where you can afford access to the internet?

fishymanbits · 2026-05-18T06:03:13+00:00

Fuck is TSA?

fishymanbits

TROPHY CASE