Today In Wing-Nuttery, Canadian Style

Today, I received an unusual bit of spam in my mailbox: a political treatise from the People First Republic Party of Ontario.

I'll start by saying I have absolutely no idea how they got my email address or why they're sending this stuff to me. I haven't lived or been an eligible voter in Ontario since 1996.

Anyway, it's a surprisingly coherent if factually flawed xenophobic anti-tax anti-union diatribe. The easiest clue that someone is off their meds is the odd capitalization: We cannot let the Global Elites in the name of Globalization continue to destroy our individual sovereign rights and freedoms and our constitutional Provincial and Federal governance systems. [...] These Foreign Legal Entities need to destroy our Traditional Canadian Rule of Law and revert to the centuries old Feudal tyranny governance systems where the Ruling Class could put them above the Rule of Law and do whatever they want, to whomever they want at any time.

Seriously, this is the style of writing one generally expects of cult leaders and/or rural Montana survivalists. I admit to having a great deal of difficulty taking the content seriously simply because the style is so overwrought as to be laughable.

Looking into their party platform, they're in favour of:

• school vouchers for kindergarten through one's first college diploma or university degree;
  
• province-wide student exams and a return to the A thru D grading system;
  
• vague complaints about truth suppression "deliberately and willfully hidden and or distorted by Powerful Interests" concerning environmental & health concerns, including the dangers of wind farms, vaccines and flouridation;
  
• complaints about "Global Elites" controlling our lives as evidenced by "CODEX, NAFTA, CETA, UN, IMF, WTO, GREEN ENERGY ACT, HST, OHIP HEALTH TAX, the WTO Toronto nonsense, the Raw Milk issues and The Fantino criminal matter" which they propose to fix by electing a sheriff in each riding in Ontario to be the senior law enforcement official and requiring US-style grand juries to approval all criminal charges;
  
• direct election of the Premier, the Chief Justice of Ontario, all judges, all sheriffs, all Crown Prosecutors, a Chief Financial Officer, a Chief Elections Officer and an Ontario Ombudsman;
  
• equal funding & scientific footing for allopathic, traditional and holistic health remedies;
  
• expanding the provincial health plan to include dental care (Hey, I can get behind that one!);
  
• vague hand-waving about the evils of corporations, urging legislation to ensure corporations are not treated as individuals and are subservient to sovereign individuals;
  
• selling off all crown corporations;
  
• provincial revenues to be frozen at 2007 levels and rolled back 5% annually for four years;
  
• capping interest and financial fees;
  
• a mechanism for citizen-drafted legislation to be presented in parliament;
  
• a recall mechanism to fire MPPs;
  
• referenda to approve any deficit spending;

I checked into some of the attachments and referenced websites. There's lots of stuff that would do a conspiracy theorist proud: we're oppressed by Rothschild bankers, being killed by modern medicine, need to return to the gold standard, believe that global warming is a scam, etc.. It was good for a chuckle.

It is getting late though as I write this so I'm going to now hit the "spam" button on my mail program and call it a night.

Car Maintenance Makes Me Cry, Phase 3

My saga of car maintenance continues...

After the timing belt replacement last month, I noticed my car was distinctly louder than it should be. Indeed, much louder than any car should be without the custom look-at-me!-look-at-me! hyper-bass I-have-a-small-dick-and-must-compensate mufflers. After discussing this back at the shop that same day, I was informed that the exhaust system near the manifold was corroding and a hole had developed: the entire system would have to be replaced. Having just dropped $1k that month for a timing belt and water pump, I opted to hold off for a short while to let my bank account recover slightly.

Yesterday morning, I bit the bullet and took my Civic back to the shop for the exhaust work. Initial estimate: $1100.

Yesterday afternoon, they called me to say the exhaust work was complete but now that the engine was quiet enough, they could hear something else not quite right in the proximity of the timing belt which had been replaced last month and asked if they could keep the car another day to investigate to ensure their prior work was solid. I like people who are willing to admit a mistake or seek improvement and I didn't need the car so I agreed.

This afternoon, I got another call: the sound wasn't anything to do with the timing belt or such. It was the alternator. More specifically, a bold & bracket attached to the alternator had corroded --did I mention the car is 10 years old?-- and allowed the alternator to slip a few degrees out of alignment, thus causing excess wear & tear on its bearings. If they could hold onto the car another day, they're over-nighting a replacement alternator, bracket & bolt to replace the dying one and, because I've been a good customer and exceedingly patient through this ordeal, they're waiving labor costs. Still, my bill this visit will top $1550.

sigh I didn't really need to eat anyway.