Classics: Buying an MGB, Part Two. Louis Shalako.

Image stolen from the internet.

Louis Shalako

Buying an MGB, part two.

Okay, ladies and gentlemen. In a previous post, I have mentioned two MGBs in the Sarnia area. A red 1966, a southern car, in fairly nice condition, $12,000.00, (and a 12-V positive ground, and a generator, assuming it has not been converted, also, the three main-bearing engine), and a black '78 not nearly so nice and a price of $9,998.00 or so. That car has the rubber bumpers and it is jacked up from the factory 1.0" to meet North American headlight and bumper regulations of the day. It also has the gold coloured pin-stripes, which are not all that desirable from my own unique point of view...

(You will note the ’66 has two wiper blades and the ’78 three; due to required square inches of ‘sweep’, of 100 squares). It also has the 67-bhp engine. The dreaded pollution control engine, although it would have five main bearings, assuming the original motor or an appropriate replacement unit. Back in the day, I could buy a good motor and gearbox for two, three, four hundred dollars. You could literally drop that in and it would run fine, it was the car that had rusted out, or been totalled in an accident. A real enthusiast collects, and some guys just had more stuff laying around than they could ever use, and some of them were undoubtedly married as well. 

(Always a factor. - ed)

Ah, but there is this one 1971, (already sold), split rear bumper for $8,500.00 and it has a ridiculously low mileage. The car looks fairly clean. The only real problem is that it is in Mississauga. How in the hell do I get to Mississauga, safety check and register the vehicle, get insurance, and somehow get the thing 200 kilometres down the road to my own home town. There would be some logistics, and therefore, costs, involved in that transaction.

So, here we are, scrolling through ads on Kijiji and one or two other websites…just doing the research, ladies and gentlemen.

I just saw an '84 Vette, $5,400.00 or so. That one's in pretty rough shape, with uncompleted body work, needs paint, the interior is very rough. Its condition tells its own story...one wonders what we would find underneath, also, you had better have a budget and some idea of what you are getting into. As for a '71 MGB with less than 17,000 miles, ah...not making any accusations here, but you can simply unscrew the speedo cable out of the back of the gauge and make it look lower mileage than it really is. I could tell with a good inspection underneath, especially if it truly has never been winter-driven. I would have to read the ad again. This engine would have 94-bhp. Ideally, you get in and drive it for the summer and no major repairs required...

Well, we can always dream.

There are some cheap and simple performance modifications for the MGB, and vintage technical bulletins from the factory on the subject are available.

From the blog of Ian Cooper.

When I bought a 1971 MGB roadster in about 1978, I was an eighteen year old kid. Lots of guys liked sports cars back then. There were a lot more of them, and even as fourteen and fifteen year-old kids, naturally we dreamed of the day we would turn 16 and get our beginner’s license.

The cleaner, the better in my opinion. Yet you can see the panel, the sill under the door is problematical. There should be a little round tube below the door, the original jacking point. It's missing. This vehicle, does not have side marker lamps...those are aftermarket alloy rims, 14" four-bolt pattern. Panel lines are notoriously difficult to align on some of the British cars. The door has sagged a bit, and yet this one seems kind of exceptional. Things to look for: I see bumperettes on the front, yet they are not visible on the back end...

Over the course of the seven or eight years I drove the car, I blew the engine, burned out a clutch, scored brake rotors when the brake pads wore down to the metal and I was a hundred and forty miles from home. I had all sorts of adventures in that car.

The car was modified to some degree by the time I was done with it.

The original motor had an air pump for pollution control. On someone’s suggestion, a guy with an M.G.B. G.T., I removed the air pump, changed the pulley belt for it and then used five-eighths national coarse pipe plugs to fill the holes in the head.

Purists hate to see you do that sort of thing. I'm not saying they all smoked pipes, wore chirper caps and had leather elbow patches on their tweed coats, it was just a different philosophy. I was also flat broke most of the time...the circumstances were also different.

I even liked working on cars, and maybe they did not...right? My old man got all As in auto shop in high school, my girlfriend's old man was a mechanical engineer. You ask them guys a question, trust me, you're going to get an answer.

I wanted to race. It was my big dream in life. I read Road & Track, Rob Walker’s F-1 coverage and all the road tests—we read tests of cars we could never hope to own, but guys of a certain age drool over a red Countach.

By the time I was done, the car had an aluminum hood. Once you’ve taken the motor out once or twice, you quickly realize that the sealed and bonded ends of the oil cooler hoses are a pain in the butt because the hoses go through flared or rubber-ringed holes in the radiator cross-piece. You had to take it out sometimes. In the M.G. it's easily removable with a few bolts. The solution to this was to cut the metal part of the pipes, and then substitute Aeroquip hoses. The oil pressure in that car was good, fifty to seventy pounds per square inch depending on engine speed. Not knowing all that much about such things, I used double hose clamps. I used a fairly big clamp which meant that it had a fairly big screw to tighten it. I could use a fairly big screwdriver to tighten it properly. Some guys told me that oil pressure was wrong. They were seeing thirty to fifty psi on their gauges. I didn't care if it was right or wrong. What I wanted to see was consistency. As long as it behaved the same way, all of the time, that was good enough for me. Oh, and if the pressure seems down a little, you might want to check the oil level...

The two dials down low, (#9, #10),  are heater and air controls. #11, a map light. This is probably a '68 or so. So, you've got a brake test light, headlight switch, fuel gauge, tachometer, oil pressure, speedo and coolant temperature in the top row. #6, charging, #7 high beams. This one might have had the horn on the centre of the steering wheel, later models, on a stalk on the control column, later models an airbag front and centre. (Research shows the MGB never had an airbag. - ed) I always thought these steering wheels were dangerous, if not downright ugly. I have no idea what #5 is, (the turn signal indicators? - ed.) the molded vinyl dash is definitely familiar. Do the research.

Another modification happened by accident. I was in Delhi, working at the News-Record, and the car had charging problems. The alternator was shot. I needed it for work, M.G. parts were expensive. More than anything, it took time to get them. A guy at the Canadian Tire store in Delhi suggested changing it for a Chrysler alternator. I thought he was nuts until he took me out in the parking lot and showed me how he had done it to his red Triumph Spitfire. It took a piece of flat-bar, a couple of holes, used the same belt, and now produced seventy amps where the little M.G. unit would do thirty-five.

On that car I put Hooker tube headers. I had a Supersprint free-flow exhaust. When you look at the ads in magazines, (online nowadays), they make claims. Guaranteed increase in horsepower, anything from ten to thirty-five percent. It’s probably best to assume lower numbers. You’ll talk about it and your friends will try and shoot you down. It’s best not to make extravagant claims. The combination sounded good and the engine probably did rev higher and produce more power. The engine blew one day at over a hundred miles an hour, and that’s how I ended up with an engine from a 1969 M.G.B. that I pulled out of a back yard on Pine Street and we towed home on the end of a rope.

What I did next, before sticking that old motor in my car, was to pay a little machine shop, just down and off Vidal Street to rebuild the block properly. Then I did a little porting and polishing on the cylinder head.

Air cleaners removed, the 1 1/2" S.U. carbs...there's something a bit funny about the angle on these carbs.

I had never done it before and I’ve never done it since. I didn’t go too insane. Going mad in there will create thin spots. Coolant flows through the heads and uneven thicknesses in port walls leads to uneven cooling and heating cycles. The M.G. head is cast iron, which is somewhat more forgiving in an overheat situation. Overheating is often the death of cast aluminum heads. This will result in hairline fractures and eventual failure. I just tried to match up the profiles where the exhaust ports met the manifold. I smoothed it up, not to a mirror-like shine, but matte. I used little stone grinding stones similar to what you stick in a Dremel-type tool. I did a similar process on the intakes, which were round—the exhaust ports were little rectangular holes inside the larger round tube of the header. I just made them rounder and flared in terms of the casting…I basically just cleaned up the intakes, of which there are two, and continued using the stock manifold, which also got a quick polish inside using a wire wheel on a cheap 3/8 power drill...this is an overhead valve, solid pushrod engine. The MGB has an electric fuel pump. I suppose I could talk all day.

***

When doing the cylinder head, we milled her down about 0.030”, something rational like that. That was three passes of ten thou each. A typical clean-up cut would be ten thousandths back in the day. If you were absolutely certain the head had never been done before, you could try it. If you are not certain, the basic cut is your best bet, otherwise there is the possibility of the valves hitting the top of the pistons.

I took the heavy and boxy old M.G. air cleaners off and made my own. There are small, flat but cylindrical filter elements. Back then, they were for a Pinto or a Maverick or something. I took two round plates of one-sixteenth hard aluminum. The outer plate needs a couple of holes for the bolts, and the inner plate had the hole to match the carb plus the same two holes for bolts. I had to use shorter bolts, that is true.

The other thing with the M.G. or any small car is weight. On a roadster, the roof comes right off along with a little folding frame-work—the stays. You can leave that at home. The bumpers were easy to remove. That saved some weight. The air pump weighed a few pounds. You might have to go to a smaller diameter V-belt. You can switch out the thermostat housing/bracket combination to an older type, if you're obsessive about such things and I was. When the rug was shot, I took it out. A rotten old rug weighed something. I switched from two six-volt batteries to one twelve-volt. I got rid of the original three-blade wipers and used a two-blade system from the ’69. I paid a guy down in Chatham, Ontario to do that work for me. If he thought I was nuts, so be it—I blanked off the one hole, and we might have moved one hole, and we used the sort of crank cable assembly from the '69.

The triple wiper system was in response to improved safety regulations of the era, something to do with having ‘a minimum of 100 square inches of swept area’ or whatever it was back then.

The M.G. was a fun car for a young guy. You could look up under the dashboard and find the four bolts. You could remove the windshield. I took the front fenders off. I propped her up on an angle of forty-five degrees once to do some work to the chassis, which had some rot when I first got hold of it.

I took the engine and transmission out, changed the clutch plate and then put it back in the car again. I stood the engine on its nose on a couple of baulks of timber...I did not have a pilot shaft, I eye-balled the alignment. It worked fine. I was alone, just me, a set of chain-falls, a few tools, some lights, and then there was the car.

I ran mine on unleaded fuel without major problems. Interestingly, with no engine computer, no internal sensors for every little function, running a higher octane fuel also increases power. In the modern vehicle, the machine senses the octane...somehow, and compensates accordingly. The cars were relatively good on fuel, and the systems were so simple, you could just advance the spark a bit, or retard it a bit, and in fact there's a little micro-adjustment on the side of the distributor for just this eventuality. Way back when the vehicle was designed, fuel varied considerably, from place to place in terms of grade or even simple cleanliness. With the cars exported all over the world, fuel standards were very different in different markets.

This is a bit of what I call 'intuitive reverse engineering'. Question. How do I know the modern engine computer can sense the 'octane' of the fuel? Well, I don't. Not really. And even if I did know it, I sure as hell couldn't properly explain it. But if the modern engine computer can't sense the octane of the fuel, what fucking difference does it make, as to exactly what grade of fuel you decide to throw in there. The only difference with the old technology, is that the engine computer is essentially the driver, and the mechanic, the dreamer, if you will. Not just some silicon chip that don't really give a damn either way.

And now we all know how I really feel.

Throw in a little bit of aggression, and that was a pretty quick little car for its time, its place, and its budget.

END

Note. By removing ten percent of the weight of a car, you get ten percent more power for free. It will accelerate ten percent faster, go ten percent faster, and use ten percent less fuel. Not only that, but the tires have to pull ten percent less vehicle through a turn, as well as stop it under braking. Ten percent is a huge improvement in automotive terms. Also, by extension, the springs are now ten percent harder (relatively speaking) and the shocks ten percent more capable of damping out major wheel movements. Braking distance will be reduced by ten percent. This is not an extravagant claim but the result of simple physics. With more modern tech, we can substitute run-flat tires and dispense with the full-size spare in the trunk. We can leave the jack and handle at home. In the event of a puncture, we can slow down and drive it home, in extreme circumstances, we can use the cell phone and call the auto club for a free tow, and bring it on home on a flatbed. It is a sports car. Maybe, just maybe, it takes a certain kind of sporting personality to drive one of these things.

Ah, in the previous post, I advised readers to join a club, an association, subscribe to the newsletters, get out and meet some of the people. I have just signed up at this here website, and I don't even have a car.

The M.G. Experience.

END

Additional Note: two of the cars (on Kijiji) under discussion have sold, literally as I wrote this story. It's a good question as to whether they got their price, but they're gone now and I appear to have missed out...

No bargain at $3,950.00.

You're not going to save any money by buying this one and 'fixing it up'.

What does it take to convert from positive to negative ground?

Jay Leno’s Garage: Moss Motors MGB. (Video)

Kurt Tanner Motorcars. (Video)

Writer Ian W. Cooper is on Amazon.

Classics: Buying an MGB. Louis Shalako.

Poor old Louis is also on Amazon.

See his works on ArtPal.

Thank you for reading, ladies and gentlemen.

Cut the metal tubes on the oil cooler pipes just at the flange, subsitute Aeroquip & clamps...the fenders bolt on. The real problems are underneath, for example the sills, and the roof, the interior...everything. I think you can learn a lot, for example the hose from the fuel filter on the right side actually bends around and goes back to the carburetor, you can see the removable radiator frame, oil cooler, two horns, the coil, the later model oil filter, (upside down), and on the upper left, the charcoal EVAP system, etc. There's a grille just ahead of the windshirld, the chromy bit just behind the hood. There's a black airbox, top, centre, with a squirrel-cage fan, and ducting through a heater core...a little flapper-door that sends warm air to the windshield, the feet, or both. There's a lever way up under the dash to open that door. The hot water is controlled by a valve, connected via cable to a control on the dashboard and there's another control for fan speed. There are large, sort of rectangular rubber plugs, in the far upper corners on the firewall, pull them out and you can get at the wiper assembly.

 

Dear Editor. Is That By the Hour, Or By the Word. Louis Shalako.

 

I already have a part-time job making pizza dough...

Louis Shalako.

Dear editor,

 

You are looking for free-lance reporters.

After thirty years on disability, I don’t have much of a resume. I ‘retire’ off of ODSP in August. The CPP will be minimal, although OAS and GIS are intended to bring a senior citizen up to an ‘income floor’, below which they are theoretically not supposed to fall, in terms of income.

(If the rent goes up, or the car blows up, that is another story.)

What I do have is 24 books, mostly fiction. I have hundreds of short stories and novellas.

Every bit of that was self-published.

That doesn’t necessarily prove that I can’t write or that I am a failure as an author.

My short stories have been published in Estonian, Dutch, Greek, German, Portuguese and two dialects of Spanish in addition to English.

When I published my latest novel on Google Play, I saw that people could take an existing ebook, and using AI, turn that into an auto-narrated audiobook. So then I spent about five months, and did 135 titles as audiobooks. It’s not as easy as you might think. You do have to listen to every word, otherwise ‘John read a book’ might become ‘John reed a book’, in order to fix that, I had to take the ‘a’ out of read. I knew it would be a big job. I put my head down, very, very humbly, and did the work.

The machine will pronounce ‘John red a book’ just fine, and since it’s not text, it’s not a typo—the listener will never see the text. Also, John sat down to read a book works just fine with AI. There is a learning curve, and I did have to accept that one voice might pronounce Louis just fine, but not Shalako. Another voice mangled Louis, but came a lot closer with the Shalako name. Louis Shalako is a pen-name, and I have my reasons for doing that. Some voices are British, some American, there are one or two Aussie voices and then some young voices from India. For my purposes, I stuck with the more western-sounding voices, although I did give an Indian female a try in a story by one of my pen-names, of which I have five.

I did study Radio, Television and Journalism Arts at Lambton College, under the tutelage of Geoff Lane, John Murray, John Hus, and others. I returned to study ‘Art Fundamentals’, a bit of a bird course; and yet at the same time, some grounding in graphic arts and other pictorial arts have been helpful in the sense that I did all my own book covers. I formatted all of my own works. I edited them to the best of my ability, for spelling, style and errors of logic.

Stella, my negotiator...

***

Okay, down to the nuts and bolts.

Your house style may be a little different than mine. I would have to play by your rules, no cussing and swearing, no negative characterizations. To draw conclusions about a person’s intentions or motivations, to put thoughts in their head or words in their mouth is not particularly good journalism. Drawing conclusions is not impossible, one would hope it is the readers drawing the conclusions.

We can lead them to the water—it is up to them whether they want to drink or not.

You may not be comfortable with me using a pen-name, and I might not be comfortable using my real name.

I am sure that you have time sheets, expense and mileage forms, I’m sure there is room for agreement, assuming I had to drive to Wyoming for a meeting of county council for example. It is a business, after all.

I know you’re not writing fiction and that good journalism has rules, some of which are still unwritten. You’re not big on italics and bold, and ‘tricky’ writing, writing which might impress but somehow serves less well. We take the ego out of the equation. A professional journalist does not inject himself or herself into the story.

While I’m sure some work could be done from home, you do have a newsroom. I would very much like to see your newsroom and meet everyone. You will be surprised to know that I am still a bit shy. When I worked as a sports editor at the Delhi News Record, it was 140 miles from home. They had a dress code. I took it seriously enough, in that I wore a sport jacket, a shirt and a tie, nice slacks, not jeans, and shiny black shoes. (My mother, armed with her trusty credit card, took it very seriously indeed.) Yes, I carried steno pads and a camera. In a town of 1,400 people, no one had a clue who this guy was—I was the news, in a sense, but at the very least, I did not know anyone. I did not have friends in that town. I could be, or become, what I needed to be in order to do the job.

I didn’t have to worry about my friends laughing at me, and I didn’t have to worry about people who didn’t like me for whatever reason, picking away and carping away and disparaging everything I did. The people in Delhi essentially took me at face value. That is the new guy at the newspaper—and fair enough.

After a while, they get used to looking at you, and they can at least read your words in the paper and make their own assessment. All of a sudden, everyone in town knows your name.

Some of my concerns include: would I need a high-end phone, and a high-end phone plan, in order to do the work. My phone has call and text, and it costs $28.25 per month.

Would I need my own camera. I have a Nikon camera, it’s not very good, with a fixed lens and built-in flash.

Do you have any particular dress code? Shiny blue suits may not be entirely necessary these days, although there is probably a time and a place for it—

My hearing is not always very good. The phone is fine, I can turn it up and jam it up to my ear, although when the other party is on speaker-phone it can get a bit choppy, due to wind noise, music, or them turning their face away as we talk. In person, in a room, it can be a little frustrating for all concerned. I’m not deaf and I don’t need hearing aids. It’s just wax—to get the ears flushed out is $50.00 a pop and it’s not covered by OHIP. I am also pretty useless without the reading glasses…Every so often, I wonder if I am suffering from irritable bowel syndrome...’nuff said.

As a free-lance writer, presumably I would be an ‘independent sub-contractor’, responsible for making all my own contributions for CPP, OHIP, WSIP or whatever Workmen’s Comp is called these days. Presumably I would be responsible for saving enough to pay my own taxes, for example.

Would we be paying by the hour, the story, or the word.

Exactly how much time and training would I get, bearing in mind it has been forty years since I actually worked in the industry. If I had a desk in your newsroom, would it be equipped with a proper desktop computer, with a proper keyboard and mouse. Would the screen be as large as possible, would there be decent speakers and a good printer for the odd occasion such things might be useful. Would it be a very comfortable and professional chair. I think we can assume you have a coffee-maker, and a big box of hyphens and asterisks laying around…

I’m much better in the mornings. Afternoons are not a deal-breaker, bearing in mind I have a part-time job and I am not looking for full-time employment. Evenings, I don’t know. For an important story we would have to take that on a case-by-case basis.

I already have a part-time job making pizza dough, so that is a consideration...

Thank you for listening.

 

Louis

END

Louis Shalako has books and stories available from Google Play in ebook and audiobook format.

See his works on ArtPal.

Thank you for reading.

Editor's Note. I'm sorry, kid, we just can't use you. You have the #wrong_attitude

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reading the Economic Auguries. Analysis of Chicken Guts. Louis Shalako.

It's the economy, stupid.

Louis Shalako

Economic indicators.

Excuse me while I rip the guts out of this bird and read the auguries from its entrails...

The price of fuel is down a few cents, yet still fairly strong since the very early days of Covid when it went to a very low $0.88/litre in Canadian dollars. (In an ironic twist, it was $1.39.9/litre when I checked online, half an hour later, when I got to the rez, it was $1.51.9 Cdn. What sort of conclusions we can draw, other than the fact that the price of fuel is volatile, is a good question.) Condo rents in Toronto fell seven percent. Grocery inflation only 1.4 % over previous month. 1.5 % the next month. This after climbing 22.5 % since May 2020. That hardly seems like good news…

The Bank of Canada rate has been lowered by 0.25 %, yet the next cut is now seen as less likely in July, and it would have only been the same quarter-percent again. From a personal perspective, our order for the week before the first big holiday weekend of the summer is down significantly. Our customer may have simply been overstocked on pizza dough, yet there must also be a reason for that (or this) state of affairs. They can look at last year's numbers just as easily as we can, but it is this week's numbers that really generate the cash flow...we were sort of expecting 60 totes and the order is only 45. (Now we're overstocked.) Also. A story takes some time to put together. A day later, we get our delivery from Ricco, sacks of flour and salt and the like. I asked the driver if things were busy.

He said they’re ‘slow—very slow’. Like our customer, they also can look at last year’s order for this week, (and a lot of other people’s orders besides), he even mentioned ‘twenty-three or twenty-five sacks’, where this year, just before the big holiday weekend, our order is fifteen sacks of flour. This is purely anecdotal, but Ricco also has to anticipate demand, so they can put in their order. One sack of flour is good for about sixty dough-balls, and we also had a skid full of flour, so in that sense we always have a pretty good reserve of materials and ingredients. We also agreed that the rich are still getting richer, perhaps just a little more slowly than before. They may have to save up a little longer before they buy that independent little island-state in the Pacific, and what the hell, eh—their personal fortune is only two or three billion down, and the market will continue to climb for no particular reason.

***

Unemployment went up by a notch, yet it is still low enough to be considered full employment when you consider the large numbers of #mental_health_addictions people living and dying in homeless camps all over this great nation...wage growth remains strong, Ontario public spending on social programs continues its long, slow and agonizing death of a thousand cuts. The bougies continue to purchase big, ugly houses and all the other useless toys and status symbols so precious to the type.

Meme stolen from the internet.

#Louis

Last year, clients of ODSP received a raise in July, and it was six percent. One wonders if they will chisel this time around—they have to base the raise on a preceding 12-month period. Which twelve-month period probably depends on choosing the period with the lowest overall rate of inflation, (It’s not so simple as just going back to last July), also, they could chisel by giving the raise in November, which was the normal pattern in the past. They could, conceivably, pick the lowest overall twelve-month period and then wait until November. If that ain't chiseling, (or chiselling), I don't know what is. I go off disability in August, which makes it somewhat academic in terms of personal impact.

We’ve all seen some variation on the old ‘inflation is caused by poor people having too much money’ sort of memes and posts on social media, largely as a result of pandemic emergency relief programs—you may recall that one third to one half of the workforce was sent home as a public safety measure, but inflation had begun its inexorable climb before that, that is also true of housing inflation. You have to understand some folks absolutely hate any kind of equitable redistribution of wealth, which they like to call entitlements. God created you, he did not entitle you to any kind of living. CERB was for employees, there were programs for businesses, also affected by pandemic closure. I doubt if too many of them refused such assistance, although getting them to pay it back will be like pulling teeth from a rock…some of those businesses will never reopen, and one wonders if such payouts became a part of someone’s retirement plan.

Our business was an essential service, we kept working. We were ‘essential workers’, and heroes, right up to the point it was over and then we went back to being irrelevant to any real political considerations…at least as far as the bougies were concerned.

So, the Inn of the Good Shepherd is giving out fruits and vegetables, and expanding that service…

When you consider that you could get an English cucumber for $0.44 this week, and that last week, I got five pounds of potatoes for $1.68, it says a lot more about low wages, high rents and the appalling state of Ontario social policy, than anything else. This is especially true insofar as it relates to disability pensions thirty to forty percent below the poverty line, and the ludicrous $733.00/month welfare payments for a single adult. This is why the stigma, is so valuable, to the bourgeoisie.

You have to admit, it saves them a piss-pot full of money.

In the case of Michael Parsa, Minister of Children’s, Community and Social Services in Ontario, one wonders at all the useless photo ops that appear with depressing regularity on his official Facebook page. The whole point is that they are making funding announcements, which all looks very good on paper or screen. Except that the overall spending trends indicate more of a cop-out than anything else. It is propaganda, and official propaganda always emphasizes the positive. Opposition propaganda always emphasizes the negative, of course.

(Around here, we like to think of ourselves as fair, objective, and impartial. – ed.)

Speaking objectively, Canada, with a population of 41 million rational agents in economic theory, is also connected to the global economy. In that sense, we are subject to outside influences, as an example, every little thing globally, seems to affect the price of fuel, noted above. The cost of housing is so much more dictated by internal factors—we’re not importing houses from China, or exporting wheat to the Ukraine, just to make the point clear. Canada is sixth in global energy production, and when the price is high, a kind of prosperity ensues—a hard habit to kick, as it were. As for rational, in a recent survey, it was suggested that forty percent of all Canadians were suffering from some sort of mental illness, which by extension, must also include a similar sampling of pollsters…but that, as we say, is a story for another day.

In the modern automobile, with all of their electronic sensors and processing units, there are still a limited number of variables to be analyzed. You push on the throttle, and the engine revs up, the vehicle goes faster. You take your foot off the gas, touch the brakes and she slows back down again. You turn the steering wheel, you go left, you go right. Turn off the key, and she stops in your own driveway.

The economy, (stupid), has a minimum of eight to ten billion variables, representing every single human being on the planet Earth, and then some, such as weather, plate tectonics, sunspots, every other living creature on the planet, and then all the physical, chemical and vegetable forces at work at any given time.

My personal opinion is that the Bank of Canada will be extremely cautious about hitting the gas pedal on that economy-thingy, and even more cautious about stomping on those brakes. It’s a fine balance, this is especially true when the more privileged and therefore political classes are feeling the pinch of the glass slipper—more than anything, they fear turning into a pumpkin at midnight.

One big party for the Michal Parsas of this world...

All right, allegories aside, even if the rate of inflation came down to two percent and stayed there for a while, it will be some very long time before the Bank of Canada rate comes down to anywhere near that same figure. As for the nominal, 0.25 % rate that had persisted for many years beforehand, I doubt if we will see that again in our lifetimes, bearing in mind this writer is turning 65 and retiring off of disability very, very soon now.

My advice to the Bank of Canada would be to hold off on that rate cut for another quarter, but what in the hell do I know.

Only what I read in the papers, ladies and gentlemen, and that is the sad and lonely truth.

 

END

 

Inn of the Good Shepherd Giving Out Fresh Fruits and Vegetables.

Graph of auto fuel prices in Canada, 2022-24.

Food Prices from 2017 to 2023.

Food Inflation Ticks Up. (CTV)

The Impact of Inflation on Wages. (CBC)

Study of Wage Disparity by Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

Canadians Paying Too Much Rent.

Toronto Condo Rents Drop Seven Percent in Six Months.

CERB. 

Canada Revenue Agency Recovery Efforts. (CBC)

Forty Percent of Canadians Report 'Minds Eroding'. (Bogus poll)

Editor’s Note. Louis says ‘percent’ where some other style books say that as per cent. Oh, and he prefers Cdn rather than CAN when referring to the Canadian dollar. He's been studying economics on the internet for some years. He's not too sure if 'chiseling' should have one or two 'L's. He might even be too lazy to look it up, and probably don't give a shit anyways. Other than that, he really is quite all right.

Check out the #superdough blog.

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Thank you for reading, ladies and gentlemen. 

 

Election Interference and the Comments Section. Analysis by Louis Shalako.

Xi.

Louis Shalako

Election interference, and the comments section.

I am having a hard time making my mind up on this one, and not drawing too many hasty conclusions.

This is one of those cases where an individual story might be a bit shallow, where a few alleged facts are stated and much of what might be implied from it lies mostly in the mind of the beholder. It is also one big, heaping, steaming pile of bullshit.

Here’s a quote:

“The report also says intelligence assessments indicated at least two transfers of funds - roughly $250,000 (£192,000) each - from Chinese officials in Canada, possibly for foreign interference-related purposes. Another of the foreign-meddling tactics mentioned in the report is the targeting of diaspora Canadians by threatening their families in their countries of origin. It accused both China and Russia. The 194-page document is based on the first phase of hearings by the inquiry, which in April heard public testimony by witnesses including members of parliament, national security officials, senior government aides and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. (BBC)

Okay, if there is evidence of transfer of funds, fairly large sums, we have to wonder from where it came, where did it go to, and what was the intended purpose of the exchange.

Suivez l’argent, a cardinal rule of good journalism. Follow the gold, ladies and gentlemen, even though it is a smokescreen and a red herring, it came from somewhere and it is there for some purpose…

One of the most interesting things in the BBC article is the claim, by former Conservative Party of Canada leader Erin O’Toole, is that he figures his party lost nine seats in the previous election due to Chinese interference. Due to his ‘failure’ as a leader, party faithful duly called for a leadership review, with the result that Pierre Poilievre became head of the party and presumed, next Prime Minister of Canada. The secondary result, was that Patrick Brown, was stabbed in the back a second time, in what seems almost a pattern. Mr. Brown has since become the Mayor of Brampton.

Vlad.

***

There is nothing implausible about interference in electoral affairs by China, Russia, North Korea, India, Iran. They don’t have too much to lose, one wonders what they actually hope to gain. It is difficult to accept, as rational people, that they do it for its own sake, the sake of disruption. It probably does have an effect, somewhere, sometimes, under certain circumstances. If nothing else, it is deeply embarrassing to the government.

What is concerning, is when someone shrieks ‘name the traitors’ in the comments section, and when I go to look at the profile, it’s not public, there are no friends, no posts, nothing but a pic and a name which may or may not be real. I’m an author, I have five pen-names in different genres. I know how easy it is, to set up accounts for email and then various social media platforms. I know how easy it is to click on a few profiles and find a few ‘friends’ or ‘connections’ on social media. It’s not like I haven’t spammed out a few book links over the years.

I would like to persuade, you to buy a book—which seems innocent enough.

If you want to talk about effects, some alleged interference in the past, well, all of this is having one hell of an effect in the present—and perhaps this is where we might look into relationships of a more intuitive nature. The idea, supported by the polls, is that Mister Pierre Poilievre is going to be the next Prime Minister of Canada, and the Progressive Conservatives are going to form a majority government. It is disturbing how this idea seems to have emboldened some of the more abusive members of his following. Some of them seem just a little bit farther to the right than seems healthy, and some of them are downright scary.

Then there is the question of who anonymously broke the original story, giving an exclusive to Global News, a for-profit news source who just so happens to be having some financial difficulties and whose audience and advertisers can’t quite cover the budget and provide some small profit. 

How desperate were they…???

The individuals, whose identity is (or are) being protected as a journalistic ‘source’, (or sources),  have their own motivations, and one wonders just what those motivations might be, beyond bringing attention to foreign interference. Bearing in mind no one is going to testify before a committee of inquiry and admit, that yes, they somehow voted differently due to someone on the phone threatening their family back in their country of origin, for surely, if they can compel your vote, they can also compel your silence by their threats or blandishments.

Modi.

With some it is the stick, with some it is the carrot. If I were a foreign espionage agency, I would make some heavy-handed approaches. I would make some payments, relatively easily traced…a few threats in all the right places. I might even be seen and photographed with the subjects of our interest. And then, when the time is ripe, I might even drop a dime and give an anonymous tip, to someone who might be employed in the industry and consider it a public duty and go check it out using sources available to them…sources which can be predicted. If they can be predicted, they can also be managed.

If I were a foreign espionage agency, reading the Canadian news on this subject, I would be fairly pleased with myself. You’ve stirred up the extreme right wingers, sowed all kinds of dissension and discord, and got the witch-hunters and Toronto Sun columnists out in full force. And it didn’t even cost too much. It’s right out of Sun Tzu. Defeat the enemy mind, and you defeat the enemy—which in this case, happens to be us.

So far, Green Party Leader Elizabeth May has applied for, and received, clearance to read the (relatively) un-redacted report from NSICOP. (I will check this acronym.) Mr. Jagmeet Singh, head of the New Democratic Party, currently engaged in a supply-and-trade agreement to support the minority government in exchange for certain social programs, has also done so. The gentleman from the Bloc Quebecois plans to read the document. One must presume the Prime Minister has read the document, and they all agree there is no ‘list of the names of traitors’, which some folks in the comments section are stridently calling for. Yet I have my doubts about the validity of some of those accounts, and while some accounts might be real people, they don’t appear to be anywhere near the mainstream in terms of their opinions, or in how those opinions are stated. This is hardly political discourse, it is political harassment—the only form of harassment that is legal, and it must remain so if the Constitution is to have any meaning at all. When I see the sort of similarities in the content of these comments, it’s almost like they are taking it out of a common playbook, a common script. Mr. Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada, makes some kind of announcement, and you’ve got twenty or thirty comments in a row talking about the price of groceries—and yes, ‘name the traitors’.

The comments might be relevant, the sheer repetitiveness is something else. I have the impression that if Mr. Pierre Poilievre became Prime Minister tomorrow, the comments would quickly dry up, having served their purpose.

Khameini.

Monsieur Poilievre, it must be said, has so far not applied for security clearance, nor has he read the (relatively) un-redacted report on foreign interference, which is believed to contain information about Chinese students, bussed in to local riding associations, in order to ballot for one candidate as opposed to another, presumably to forward the aims and ambitions of the government of the People’s Republic of China. I’m usually pretty intuitive, but his mind is a total blank to me. If I thought he could be brainwashed, I’d be tempted to give a go myself—

What with being a senior citizen, and not just an irascible old man much of the time. (I'm going to need you to keep up those Carbon Tax Rebates, Buddy, among other things. Quite frankly, I have a list.)

As Mister Scheer has stated, this may have cost his party as many as nine seats at the time of the election, although this may underplay the rather bland nature of Mr. Scheer and his platform. His successor, the blandest person who has ever lived, a big gob of pablum on two legs, has gone to the opposite extreme in terms of the vagaries of rhetoric, and considering the party has been extremely careful not to state anything about this country that they actually believe in, neither have they stated any sort of positive program other than getting rid of any and all institutions that stand in the way of ‘progress’, as defined by them, one can only wonder how all of this may turn out. Other than quickly returning us and this nation to 1957. Or whatever—

Just a quick and dirty little disclaimer here, ladies and gentlemen. I pay my own way, and my vote has never been influenced by China, Russia, North Korea, India, Iran, or any other polity or non-state actor acting against the best interests of the Canadian people. I am a citizen, and I will work to influence Canadian politics and the electoral process as and when I see fit. I have no anonymous sources, which could at least give some background, even if it is confidential and not for publication. If nothing else, these so-called facts would be available to the journalist and perhaps guide them in further investigations...

I have earned the right, ladies and gentlemen. No foreign actor has the right, and in this sense, it really is a serious matter.

Also, I have done an honest day’s work, (at least once in my life), and that is more than Monsieur Poilievre can say.

It is true, that the list of China, Russia, India, Iran and North Korea, (Pakistan has also been mentioned), includes some of the most violent, aggressive, ignorant and anti-social state actors in the world. That part is credible, and they must be overjoyed to have done such a good job, not only of eroding trust in public institutions—including the ballot box, but also in terms of wasting our time.

It is also true that this kind of threat can hardly be ignored. It is a disinformation campaign. And it seems to be working.

Kim Dumb Fuck.

However—

The biggest threat to Canadian democracy comes from Canadians themselves. More than half of us will simply not bother to get out and vote—I don’t need to be a pollster to predict that this election will show the lowest turnout in our history; in spite of all the good reasons for turning out, and casting our votes, in what is the worst kind of irony.

This is the result of political demoralization of all stripes, no matter the base ideology of the individual.

What in the hell is the point, right.

Why would you even bother.

 

#Louis

 

END

 

 

 

Foreign Interference ‘Deeply Embedded’ in Canadian political affairs. (Global News)

Election Interference a ‘Stain’ on Canadian Democracy. (BBC)

Global News is owned by Corus Entertainment. ‘Judge Finds No Evidence’ to back up story.

Global News Claims Eight-Month Investigation.

Intelligence and Prosecutions.

Elizabeth May Reads Report.

Jagmeet Singh Reads Report.

Bloc Leader Plans to Read Report Sometime.

RCMP Cautions Parliament.

Patrick Brown Ruled Ineligible for Provincial Nomination.

Patrick Brown Denied Due to Unproven Financial Accusations.

NSICOP.

Louis Shalako has books and stories available from Google Play.

See his works on ArtPal.

 

Thank you for reading.