Mike Duffy was found not guilty of all 31 charges. He is a free man. He is allowed to return to the Senate and the trough. The legal system has spoken.
But the judge also said something more than just ‘not guilty’. He said that common sense and the rules of the senate were strangers. In effect, the judge condemned the senate for the way it conducted it’s business. In effect, the legal system is broken as well. But we knew that.
Mind you, the law, justice and common sense are also strangers. The Latimer case proved that. Robert Latimer went to jail for years. Mike gets paid $142,000 plus non-nonsensical benefits for doing more of nothing. Who is he going to shill for anyway, now that Harper is gone?
But who said life was fair?
I also read that the top-billing doctor in Ontario (an eye surgeon) cost their taxpayers $6.6 million last year. Surgeons do not ‘pay’ for the hospital they use nor the staff that assists them. They don’t pay the cleaners or the power bill. My guess is that fairness and honesty might be in question there as well.
None of that is news. I mention it only because some people are more equal than others in our corrupt and faltering system. It simply cannot continue. And yet it continues.
But it no longer continues for me. By going ‘off the grid’, we have not fully extricated ourselves from the system but we have somehow ameliorated the effects of the corruption and evil of it. I have no doubt that, had I remained in the cul de sac, I would be so outraged by so much that passes for ‘the way it is’ that I would either be mental or arrested by now.
So, what’s the point?
Living off the grid is a form of therapy, a way to mental health. I had no idea that it would turn out that way but I think it has. Of course it has the positive influence of nature, whales, ravens and fresh air but it also insulates me from so much that is wrong with this world and I am just not talking ISIL, Trump and world hunger. I am simply talking about common sense, fairness and goodness on an everyday, neighbourhood level. We have more of that out here. It’s that simple. The ratio of good to evil is just so much better.
I didn’t know that.
Our Off the Grid Home 
Some folks claim the necessity of a meritocracy so that certain blessed CEOs might be renumerated at levels that their superiority so justly deserves. While ordinary folks were losing their life savings to the banking crisis, the CEOs were claiming their richly deserved bonuses even though their actions had tanked the world economy. Not wonder the Bernnie message has traction.
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Maybe meritocracy is a valid argument…who knows…? We don’t have that going for us either. All we have right now is a kleptocracy. The best thief wins.
Sal and I find ourselves in a kelptocracy – the best sea weed helps the garden. Which do you think is better?
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Kelp….definitely kelp.
But, that being said.
Vladimir Putin’s personal wealth is estimated at $40 Billion.
So apparently, kleptocracies can work….as long as the population’s attention is focussed elsewhere ie Crimea, Syria, the US, Nato, etc.,etc.,etc………
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Vlad is 63. He’s got $40 Billion. Clearly, he is NOT doing it for Mother Russia…so who and what is he doing it for? More money? Vlad wants MORE? He could spend a billion a year for 40 years and die rich at 103….what is the point?
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How the hell could he spend a billion a year?
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Price of cauliflower over there is ridiculous! The bimbos are cheap but good vegetables…………!?
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Its not about spending it. Its about HAVING it. The “Panama papers” have revealed his old friend Sergei Roldugin has invested $2 billion in Russian media, offshore bank shares, etc.etc.etc….all while maintaining his job as a cellist in a symphony…….
76% of Russians polled believe their leaders are corrupt, 66% say Mr Putin is to blame yet he is still the most popular leader in decades….because Russian EXPECT their leaders to be corrupt….I wonder who is more naive. Us or them.
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There is no question we are more naive. We still expect our politicians to be chaste or monogamous while other cultures have embraced the reality of it. We expect our politicians to be honest when they are so obviously NOT. Why? A generous conclusion is that we are setting higher standards as we evolve. A more truthful one might be: naive people are easier to fool.
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The kleptocracy was just kicked out in Canada except for the cronies in the senate. As for Putin’s wealth no one knows for certain but it is a smoke screen for western politicians named in the Panama papers. 350 Canadians named but the press is mute about their identities. For the record Putin is not named in the Panama papers but many world leaders are. Google is all a buzz with smear and counter smear and guess and counter guess about the estimated 8 trillion hidden there in tax avoidance. No doubt the Commies, religious disfunctionalists and run of the mill dictators stash their cash, all bad no doubt and evil, deeply evil but let’s hear one by one about those doughty Canadians that hide their cash in third world places.
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Well, maybe the worst of the stupid, obnoxious thieves have been kicked out but it takes more than the removal of a dog from a kennel to be rid of a flea problem. Mr. Girouard, for instance. The eye doctor in Ontario, perhaps? I recall when I was working in the Downtown Eastside in the early 70’s, my salary was $11,000 a year. I paid the doctors $22,000. Two ‘BCMed’ doctors working near Main and Hastings were listed as the two most expensive in the system billing more than $500,000 a year. They were just prescription factories. Addicts lined the hall. Greed is a disease and Canadians are not exempt. In fact, I recall ‘business associates’ discussing the merits of ‘offshore accounts’ when I was developing real estate in the late 80’s. It was nauseating. Having said that, it was hard to defend paying taxes and being a good boy when all around you were cheating like hell. Still is hard to explain. The only rationale I can think of now is that CanRev is simply too big, too mean and too annoying to get out of sorts with. So, I pay. For the record, I would pay even more if they actually did the right thing with it. I don’t think I am alone, either.
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You had a front row seat on the war against drugs, drugs of all types. Around the turn of the century many of today’s street drugs were available over the counter. At one time as most are aware Coka Cola once contained cocaine. Children were given laudlum as a sleep aid. Granny took morphine for aches and pains. Druggists dispense methadon, OxyContin, and other prescribed palliatives for pain. It’s human nature to self medicate be it Bay Rum, bath tub gin or whatever. Each year about 28,000 people in the USA die from street drugs so let’s go to a system that allows people to know what that are ingesting before they take it. A convergence is developing which will allow sick people to take their lives with medical assistance or as an addicted person.
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350 Canadians? Chicken feed.
Apparently the journalists that were asked to check the “Panama Papers” 11.5 MILLION documents anonymously handed over to a German newspaper that decided that in order to assess and publically expose people in a timely fashion to share them with the ICIJ (International Consortium of Investigative Journalists) those 400 journalists only scratched the surface.
This is like the financial equivalent of Wikileaks.
Expect months of revelations of the who’s who of big business, govt and power to have their dirty laundry shown for all to see….I suspect the Public Relations companies are squirming in gleeful anticipation of the juicy contracts to spin doctor this little fiasco.
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THAT post got placed weird….but I do not think it will be as good as Snowden and Assange. First, Panama P’s are just a small portion of off-shore crap and secondly, no one cares how much people cheat. You do. I do. Some do. But most of the money-people are trying to do the same thing in their own little mud puddle. I am afraid the PPs will just encourage the bastards. It will just get worse. And, anyway………….look at Duffy. I think I kinda agree with the judge saying no laws were broken but what of public trust (of which there was precious little, anyway). AND he’s going back! Who cares about secret, sophisticated cheats when the big fat public ones in the cross-hairs go scott free?
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