In both Ukraine and Gaza, US-led peace negotiations are a hoax

From the BBC to CNN to CBC to Fox News, our free press agree the main obstacle to peace in Ukraine is Putin. Everybody else wants peace, and Bad Vlad won’t even negotiate! Didn’t he hear Marco Rubio? Peace requires compromise. I’m not so sure. What compromises did Canadian General Charlie Foulkes offer the Germans when they surrendered to him in the Netherlands? None that I’m aware of, yet peace ensued. In war, compromises are made by the losers, not the winners. The pique over Putin’s refusal to negotiate is because Western elites can’t bring themselves to admit defeat. Instead, they float ever more desperate fantasies about NATO boots on the ground to keep the peace that Trump is so tantalizingly close to achieving - if only his good buddy Putin would cooperate. Generally speaking, any legitimate peace negotiations require a neutral mediator. How does anyone imagine the Americans to be a neutral mediator in the Russsia- Ukraine conflict? NATO and the USA are parties to the war, not impartial observers. The entire “Trump is trying to broker a deal” charade is an insult to our intelligence. If that’s a ridiculous farce, America’s pretend efforts to “broker a deal” in Gaza is absurdist tragedy. Supporting Israel’s genocide is a genuine bipartisan project in Washington. Even as American officials profess their “hearts are breaking” at the wanton slaughter of women and children, they continue to veto one UN ceasefire proposal after another. All the Americans need to do is stop the flow of money and weapons to Israel, and you’d see a ceasefire within hours.

Canada's clean energy hype long on hype, short on clean energy

In 2022 a different Canadian PM and German Chancellor spawned acres of headlines with the wildly over-hyped ‘Hydrogen Alliance.’ Clean Canadian hydrogen would start shipping by 2025 (checks calendar…) oh! That’s this year! And how is that going, pray tell? Here’s a telling quote from the trade journal Fuel Cell Works. Just months before the end of 2024, no green hydrogen facilities in Atlantic Canada have been completed, financial terms with German companies remain elusive and infrastructure in Europe is far from ready. Hmm… hundreds of billions in loans and subsidies and there’s nothing going on! How is such a thing even possible? Clearly, the loans and subsidies are insufficient! So, no hydrogen on the horizon, but have no fear; we’re not only gonna be a leader in clean hydrogen, maybe, someday, if we ever get the loans and subsidies right, but we’re gonna be the next rare earths and critical minerals powerhouse too! And this time around we’ve got serious men in charge; Goldman Sachs alum Carney, and BlackRock veteran Mertz! We have reason to believe that heavy hitters like that will get the handouts right from the get-go! I’m not the only one feeling the good vibes. Check out this headline from the Globe & Mail today: Canada can, and should, be the worlds elder statesmen in critical minerals. Yowza!! Take that, Chinese commies! All we need to do is finish that access road into the Ring of Fire motherlode up there in Treaty 9 country. Of course, to finish it, we would have to start it first. I did a little digging and found some hopeful news. If all goes according to plan, the studies and assessments phase of the project should be complete by 2028. That’s not the road - just the studies… and then the serious work of applying for construction permits begins, so things are looking good to have that 300 kilometres of road in by the mid 2030s. A road is not a mine, of course. That will require more studies and assessments. I figure that should take another ten years, and then another ten to actually develop the mine, and by golly, we should be well on our way to untold riches around 2060 or so! Of course, bear in mind the aforementioned Treaty 9 folks will have de facto veto power every step of the way, and those people have wised up quite a bit since we rammed a railroad across the country in a mere ten years. They won’t be bought with some shiny baubles and a barrel of firewater like in the good old days. Yup, we’re destined to be a world leader in clean energy for sure!

More sweet nothings for Zelensky

On PM Carney’s European tour to scare up new trading partners, he stopped off in Kyiv, there to continue the NATO tradition of promising Ukraine unending support of “whatever it takes etc…” Mark and Zelly had a big hug and the Ukrainian PM pretended to be happy to see him, in spite of Canada’s unbroken 3+ year record of making one promise after another that we cannot deliver on. Carney announced $2 billions in support. That’s not new money, it’s a drawdown from funds that have been promised several times already. The money will be spent buying US weapons from that guy in DC who we are allegedly boycotting. Why? Is that the only place to buy weapons? Of course not. Equal or better weapon systems can be had from numerous sources, but… oh, you know… we wouldn’t want to antagonize Trump, because tariffs and stuff. We will turn those weapons over to Ukraine, and within a week or two max, Russia will have turned our two billion dollars into scrap metal. What the Canadian taxpayers get for our two billions is the satisfaction of knowing we facilitated dragging out the war a few days, and the privilege of paying back the 10+ billions we have thus far committed to this war. Then again, maybe I’ve got it all wrong. Maybe the next few billions will pull Zelly’s chestnuts out of the inferno, deliver the orcs the final blow, and lead to the glorious triumph of democracy over Putin. CBC for one still believes that’s a possibility. Murray Brewster has high hopes for the new Flamingo cruise missile the Ukrainians will start mass producing this winter. With its 3000 km range, this could be the gamechanger that finally changes the game, unlike all the gamechangers that have gone before. Maybe. Maybe not. A far more likely scenario is that the Flamingo factory will be a smoldering ruin long before the first Flamingo comes off the production line. By then NATO will have come up with the next pie-in-the-sky plan to prolong the war. Their only option is to admit they lost, and tragically, many more Ukrainians will die before that will happen.

Carney turns to Latvia and Poland to replace US trade

Yup! We gotta expand our trading partners now that Trump has turned against us. Because no way is that fascist A-hole gonna get away with bullying us! Elbows up! So, goodbye US market… Hello Latvia, the Baltic powerhouse! Population 1.8 million, shrinking every year since they won their freedom after the collapse of the USSR. Not sure about this strategy. Can a country with less than half the pop of the GTA really fill USA’s role in our economy? Obviously not. That’s why Carney added Poland and the zombie state of Germany to his itinerary. Hmm… Methinks Poland is on the cusp of falling off America’s list of favorite vassals, to join Hungary and Turkiye in the purgatory of “unreliable allies.” Did you notice Poland was not in evidence in that Oval Office capitulation scene last Monday? As for Germany, I don’t understand the epidemic of wholesale mental retardation that has overwhelmed the volk over the last generation or so. That an abject imbecile like Baerbock can achieve the post of Foreign Minister is a wonder in itself, but here’s what really amazes me. After she announced that Germany was committed to financing Ukraine forever, whether the German voters liked it or not, there was nary a peep of protest from any media in the Nations of Virtue. Democracy shamocracy! On the bright side, looks like Mark put his elbows down and backed off on the retaliatory tariffs. Trump loves it when the vassals grovel, so I’m certain there are happier times ahead!

Generous Canadian taxpayers creating jobs in Finland shipyard

Good news, Canadian taxpayers! Your tax dollars are finally creating those good well-paying jobs we’re always hearing about. Unfortunately, the jobs are in Finland. But don’t worry. Once the hulls are complete, they will be towed to the Davie yard in Quebec for outfitting. By then you can bet your bottom dollar the cost will have doubled and the completion date will have been extended multiple times. That’s the Davie way; their motto; Blowing Up Budgets and Deadlines For 150 Years. Most reporting on this story implies Davie is a Canadian company. It isn’t. It is owned by Inocea Group. Take a look at their board of directors and you’ll find great depth of financial engineering expertise but a noticeable lightness on the naval engineering side. In 2017 the Globe & Mail published an investigation of Inocea. Here’s a quote from the story: A Globe and Mail investigation has discovered that Davie is owned by a complex web of companies that can be traced from Canada and the United Kingdom to the tax havens of Monaco and the British Virgin Islands. The paper’s journalists ran into a dead end trying to trace the beneficial owners of Inocea. They also own the shipyard in Finland where the hulls are being fabbed. Their modus operandi appears to be buy bankrupt shipyards and then lobby hard for government contracts. We’ve made multi-billion dollar commitments to a concern whose controlling investors hide behind a thicket of numbered companies registered in tax havens. Given their success in squeezing money out of governments, I’m guessing there’s some serious names hiding in those secret documents.

Stoop therapy

To put it bluntly, the last six months have been somewhat fucked up here at Falling Downs. In the wake of a brutal winter, which culminated in a vicious ice storm and a four day power outage, which caused the spoilage of two freezers full of food, I suddenly found myself grappling with shit that had hitherto never impacted me. In early April, after 70 years of near-perfect health, I’m told I have something called “congestive heart failure,” or as I’ve since learned the pros call it, CHF. The pros love their acronyms, don’t they? I don’t really get it, because in my view, it ain’t failure till it stops working, in which case I wouldn’t be writing this. That’s just one of my differences with the medical community. They gotta couch everything in acronyms and jargon and bullshit, whereas I’d much prefer they tell it like it is… “If you’re lucky you’ve got six months.” But that’s just my paranoia, I’m sure. A week later my dear father buys the farm. On top of all that, the world situation has been causing me nothing but anxiety and despair. I know it would probably be good for my mental health if I just focused on… I was gonna say the Leafs, but that’s a poor example if your hoping to shake off depression. I was sitting out on the stoop when I started this rant. I can only wallow in self-pity for so long, and there’s nothing like stoop therapy to snap you out of it. The coyotes started singing about 8:30. Maybe five years ago I hung up a couple of bird-boxes on the pine trees near the house. The birds shunned them. This year I see there’s a bird family nesting in the box nearest the stoop. I think it’s a house wren. Mama bird stops by the stoop with every worm and grub she’s taking to the nest. I tell her go feed your kids. There’s a hummingbird feeder about four feet from my head. It’s quite busy, and they are amazing to watch. Sometimes they hover a few inches in front of my face, looking into my eyes. Gotta hope my irises are not mistaken for Irises! Those beaks could do some serious damage. We’ve seen a lot from the stoop. The best story is probably the time the black bear wandered into the cow-calf pasture across the way. The cows gathered their calves together and surrounded them. Then four or five of the bigger girls took chase after the bear, who skedaddled outta there right quick! Stoop therapy! I feel better now… thanks for listening!

Canada claims it's only sending paintball ammo to the genocidal state

Canada's Foreign Minister claims no bullets shipped to Israel, only "paintball-style projectiles" Take that for what it’s worth. FM Anita Anand wants you to know Canada has taken a "hard line" against Israel’s genocide in Gaza and West Bank. Not that she used the g-word. That remains taboo among pols and journos in Canada, because you know… “antisemitism.” Besides, what possible harm can there be in shipping ammo for the IDF’s Airsoft sniper rifles? In fact, if all of Israel’s allies shipped only paintball projectiles there’d be a lot fewer dead children in Gaza, so it can be argued that Canada is a leader in making Israel’s war crimes less lethal. On the other hand, I think Anand’s press release could itself open her to charges of antisemitism. After all, Canada’s leadership class is unanimous in supporting Israel’s right to defend itself. Insofar as that’s true, and I have no reason to doubt them, surely they’d be sending more than paintball ammo!

With top talent like Newsom, Buttigieg, and OAC, Dem Party poised for comeback in '28

Globe and Mail thought leader Lawrence Martin gives the game away in the first paragraph of his op-ed today. The Dems are “our” party. This reflects the abiding conceit in much of the mainstream that the main problem with US democracy is Donald Trump. If only all those billionaire donors would come to their senses and write cheques to Hilary Clinton instead, dictatorship would be averted, democracy and decency restored, Putin vanquished, and American honour resurrected. Martin is giving us a pep talk. Let’s not lose hope, Canada; “our” party is poised to make a spectacular comeback. It’s all about the depth of the Democratic Party’s talent pool. Check out their bench. What is being overlooked by those attacking the Democrats is their talent pool. The party is stacked with talent. There’s California Governor Gavin Newsom, there’s former transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, Representative Ro Khanna, Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker. A roll-call of progressive America’s leading lights if ever there was one! Martin saves the best till last. That doesn’t include firebrand representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who political analyst Nate Silver and others are already touting as the favourite to win the party’s 2028 nomination. Hmm… Vance v. OAC in ‘28? That should be fun! Alas, much can happen between now and then. It is hard to imagine that the two wars America’s proxies, Israel and Ukraine, are busy losing today will not have been decisively lost. There’s nothing the “stacked with talent” Dems or anybody else can do about it. Assuming all-out world war can be avoided, which is far from a forgone conclusion, America’s global prestige will be totally down the toilet. It will be a failed state for the 99% and a gilded cage for the billionaires, although they may have decamped to more hospitable climes by then. It’s not Newsom or Buttigieg or OAC they have to worry about. It’s Luigi.

The future always looks fabulous!... from a distance

There’s a story on view at CBC today about the brand-spankin’-new Innuit-owned fishing vessel, the Inuksuk II. She’s a beauty. Largest Canadian vessel in our fishing fleet, a factory freezer trawler that clocks in at 80 metres long with a beam of 18 metres, and a hold capacity of 1,300 tonnes. The Inuksuk II will be plying the eastern Arctic for turbot and shrimp. The Nunavut government is optimistic. The new boat will provide employment opportunities not only for the crew, but for hundreds of Inuit on-shore fish plant workers as well. The future is bright with possibilities! Sixty years ago the National Film Board released a 20 minute doc called Trawler fishermen. It followed the crew of a state-of-the-art factory freezer trawler called the Cape Nova, at the time, the biggest boat in our fishing fleet. She was the first stern-trawler in Canada. Quadrupled the hold capacity of the side-trawlers! The future was bright with possibilities! The Cape Nova was such a success that Canada ordered another half dozen freezer-trawlers. Alas, there are only so many fish in the sea, and by the time the new fleet was fully deployed, it was landing at least 200% of a sustainable catch every year. Theoretically, that’s not sustainable. And it wasn’t. By 1976, a mere ten years after the first stern-trawler, the Cape Nova, was launched, the East coast fishery was showing signs of severe over-fishing. It wobbled along for another couple of decades, until it was shut down altogether in 1992. Between boat crews and plant-workers, almost 40,000 Newfoundlanders were thrown out of work. That led to the precipitous collapse of the population of Newfoundland, a collapse that, to this day, it has yet to fully recover from. Let’s hope the aspirations of the Inuit, and their hopes for the Inuksuk II and their Arctic fishery, fare better than their comrades in Newfoundland.