Old Hobbit Yells At Cloud

Political Rants

February 25, 2026

This Is Our Game

(So, I intended to write in my personal blog first, but alas.)

As a Canadian, I grew up with a certain amount of pride when it comes to Hockey. It's in our blood. It's part of our national identity. It was invented in Montreal and quickly became our national sport.

This is our game.

So to hear a member of Team USA claim that Hockey belongs to the US is one of the worst insults I can imagine.

One.

If it was only that comment, I wouldn't be writing this post. Chalk it up to shit talk after an emotionally charged game.

Sure, to see Team USA win hurt, but as much as we love our game, we understand that no matter how well or how hard you play, sometimes you lose. As Captain Picard so eloquently put it, "it is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose."

Except.

When I saw the video leaked out of the Team USA locker room, I didn't know what to say. At first, it just looked like a raucus party by a team of hockey players who just won a great victory. Nothing wrong with that, good for them.

But then the camera panned over to show Kash Patel, the Director of the FBI, the man who has systematically and heartlessly covered up the largest pedophile ring in history that has its roots all the way up to the President of the United States and everyone who works for him….when I saw Matthew Tkachuk put a gold medal around that asshole's neck…

No. He can fuck all the way off with that bullshit.

And what's worse…

Kash Patel made a phonecall to the Fascist in Chief in that locker room. During that call, the President of the United States made a sexist joke about the women's team (who ALSO won gold medals), and the entire men's team laughed about it.

Not a single one of them commented about it.

No one left the room.

No one even made a face to indicate they didn't agree with it.

Not one.

They laughed and fawned over a pedophile.

It's disgusting, it's misogynistic, and it's antithesis of excellence that they're supposed to exemplify.I don't know, maybe I'm just giving them too much credit.

The women's team worked just as hard as they did to be there. The US and Canadian team were evenly matched and they worked their asses off to win that medal. And, statistically, women need to work even harder than men to get ahead because of the very misogyny that was thrown their way by their male peers.

That joke may not seem like a lot to most men, but to women who see this microaggression bullshit practically every day, it's vindictive and cruel.

Look, the NHL and hockey culture in general has been dogged by disgusting allegations of misogyny and sexual misconduct for a while. This is nothing new, we all know those players are assholes who routinely cheat on their wives while they're at away games. But to see that despicable attitude on full display, and so PUBLIC, makes it impossible to ignore.

Every last one of them deserves public shame and ridicule.

Kyle Connor, Winnipeg Jets.

Connor Hellebuck, Winnipeg Jets.

Auston Matthew, Toronto Maple Leafs.

Jake Sanderson, Ottawa Senators.

Brady Tkachuk, Captain, Ottawa Senators.

My home team.

My team.

Every one of these players are cheered on by their Canadian fanbase. Every single one was hanging on every word of the president who was named thousands of times in the Epstein files, threatened to annex our country, and started an unprovoked trade war with virtually the entire world.

Brady Tkachuk, Captain of the Ottawa Senators, even openly admitted that he hates Canada.

I will not spend a single cent on the Senators, or the NHL as a whole, until Tkachuk is stripped of his captaincy and traded off he team. This is Canada's capital. He doesn't represent us, and we don't fucking want him here.

There's even a petition now to remove him from the team.

Him and his buddy Jake both need to go. Every one of these guys who play for a Canadian team and were in that room need to be sent back where they came from.

They're all complicit. They're all guilty by association.

If you have ten people at a table and a Nazi MAGA sits down and no one gets up - you have eleven Nazis MAGA.

Until these guys speak up and publicly distance themselves from that pedophile in the White House, they're all dead to me.

I will never fucking forget this.

February 22, 2026

No Shelter

I was doing chores just now, and No Shelter by Rage Against The Machine came up in my playlist.

Every time I hear this song now, I think about my friend who posted it in our Discord server. My US Citizen friend (I am actively trying to NOT use 'Americans' anymore, ever since the 'gulf of america' fiasco. It's hard, and I slip up often, but it's a deliberate choice I'm working on.)

She said it hits hard now, and I agree.

My playlist is becoming far more anti-establishment than it ever was.

There'll be no shelter here.

I worry, so so much. I was dragging myself down every time I opened the news or listened to a political commentator, so much that I had to severely pare down the news and social media I consume. I'm bad at it, I still scroll and get mad or scared or depressed, because it's everywhere, it's unavoidable.

I learned from stoicism that the only way to keep myself level is to accept what I cannot change. I don't live there. I have no vote. I can't do anything to change their situation.

I can't help them.

That's what my fear comes down to.

I can't help them.

My friends are in constant danger, and I can't do anything about it. Every day there's a new horror to worry about. ICE. Deportations. Eroding laws. Inflation and job loss. On and on and on.

And I can't help them.

So instead, I focus on what I can change. My own environment. My own thoughts. My voice. I guess that's why I'm doing this. I needed somewhere to vent, somewhere I can let out everything I'm keeping in. At least then I'll feel like I'm doing something, even if no one ever reads this.

The frontline is everywhere.

Up here in Ottawa, we're (more or less) safe from The Horrors our neighbours are dealing with (well, except for Alberta and the federal Conservatives, but that's another rant), but we still have a target on our backs. If a literal war breaks out, we would be the front line. The Rideau Canal and the Citadel in Quebec City was built to defend against the US, after all.

I live an hour from the border. I used to think that was like living next door to a friend, but now it's like watching a house on fire and the owners are roasting marshmallows while their family burns inside.

The Canadian boycott of all things US made is working, very well, but the US media isn't reporting it. Or if they are, they're downplaying it, fudging numbers, lying about it the way they lie about everything these days. Seriously, if you're in the US - watch or read anything OTHER than US media to find out.

We are decimating their tourism industry. Canadian airlines are batch cancelling flights to the US because a lot of them are nearly empty anyway. They're redirecting to Mexico, the Caribbean and Europe. Bourbon distilleries are having to close production facilities because no one is buying their shit. Farmers are losing their land because the world is buying from Canada instead. Crops are being left in the field because all the workers have been deported. Europe and Asia are pivoting away from investments in the US Dollar and are selling their share of the debt.

It's a fucking nightmare, but for those not paying attention, all they see is rising prices in the grocery store and blame Canada.

Fuck, I'll take it.

Every time I cancel a US based subscription or pass over a US product in the store, to either pay more for a Made in Canada product or not buy the thing at all, it's fucking personal. You're godsdamned right I hope it hurts.

Fourth Reich Culture, Americana.

I grew up here, born and raised in Canada, but I was barely aware of Canadian music, movies, and TV shows. How fucked up is that?

Sure I knew about Alanis and Great Big Sea and Nelly Furtado, but I was sleeping on The Tragically Hip and many many other great Canadian talent. I watch the Junos every year now and don't even give the time of day to any US award shows. Who won at the AMAs? Don't care.

The infection of US culture into our lives has been near total. I can remember as a child dreaming about how amazing it must be to live in the US. How boring Canada was. I was brainwashed by ads and the US soft power - music, movies, tv, and books.

Gods, they're good at it.

I've made a concerted effort to redirect my consumption to Canadian made media. Of course I still listen to US music and watch (pirated) shows and movies, but I cancelled Netflix and Amazon. I subscribe to Crave and CBC Gem and now purposefully watch mostly Canadian made shows. Most of what I watch now nobody has ever heard of because they're made right here in Canada.

I need to see the next episode of Saint Pierre and Son of a Critch and North of North and This Hour Has 22 Minutes now. I need to get back to my binge watch of Letterkenny because it's so godsdamned funny. Also Allegiance looks really good, it's on my list, and I've been wanting to watch The Republic of Doyle for a WHILE. Maybe I'll rewatch Schitts Creek, in honour of the late, great, Catherine O'Hara.

I have SO MUCH to watch now, I don't even have time for US media anymore.

Heated Rivalry was an outlier. The US is now trying to claim as their own (HBO show? Get the fuck out with that bullshit, that show was made by Crave, and funded in part by the Governments of Ontario, Quebec, and Canada. Every one of those naked butts were paid for by my tax dollars, thank you very much. Every time I see an influencer, youtuber, or news article claim it's an HBO show it makes me viscerally angry.

No, you can't have this one, it's ours. Jacob Tierney tried a couple of US producers but they wanted him to 'tone it down' (read - less gay.) So he came home to where he knew he could make the show he wanted to make.

Vive le Canada, ye bastards.

The Thin Line Between Entertainment And War.

I've made no secret of the fact that my fanfic is very political.

When I started writing it in November 2023, it as a way to work through my own emotions and thoughts about being an apostate. First from fundamentalist christianity, and then from orthodox judaism which I converted to after rejecting the church.

I was born into christianity, I had no choice in that. I had to be what my parents were, what all my family was. To this day, I am forever grateful to my friends and my public schooling for showing me there was life outside of that. I never would have gotten out if I'd been homeschooled like my cousins.

So back to 2023 - here I was, a new athiest. A godless heritic. And I was playing this new video game that made me want to write. Specifically, I was playing a Paladin character who broke her oath to the gods. It fit too perfectly, and the weak outline of Oathbreaker was born.

I had no idea that two years later, I'd be using that same story as a thinly veiled political commentary.

It never occurred to me that the religion I grew up in - the religion that had brainwashed me and so thoroughly damaged me to the point where I needed therapy when I finally pushed my head above water and breathed the free air for the first time - would completely and totally take over the United States.

It's heartbreaking to watch. It's even worse because I know what it's like to be caught up in that. I know that, if I hadn't gotten out when I did, I'd probably be cheering it on.

When I was a christian I was angry. All the time. I saw enemies everywhere, I thought everyone who wasn't one of us was evil and destined for hell. As a teenager we were taught about 'the end times' and the rapture. I remember reading a book about martyrs that was written to encourage the reader to be eager to become one yourself. Imagine being a child with that in your head?

That's happening every day now, with thousands upon thousands of children. And that's just the tip of this horrifying iceberg.

My heart breaks for the US. But the worst part is - more than half of them did it to themselves. They voted for this (or didn't vote at all, which is worse.)

The world has turned against them. They're being isolated because of their president who is using classic abusive partner behaviours to cut them off from the rest of the world.

No one is coming to help them.

There is no shelter.

A lot of songs are extra poignant now.

Melly.