American Empire creates its own reality

But the rest of the world has to live in it. Watching the Rose Garden clown show - revival meeting last night brought to mind the alleged Karl Rove quote, to the effect that "when you're an empire you create your own reality." The people around Trump remain convinced they’re still an empire. The reason America runs huge trade deficits with much of the world is because America no longer produces much that anyone wants to buy. That’s not very empire-like, so trade deficits are re-defined as subsidies, or at least they were a few weeks ago. By last night they had somehow morphed into the rationale for “reciprocal tariffs.” That’s how the American Empire invents new realities. If we pause for a moment and consider the old realities, we can see why Uncle Sam is in a rush to move along. In short, the American Empire is in such deep shit that it is unlikely to remain an empire much longer. Trump 2.0 promised he’d end two wars immediately. Unfortunately, they’re both escalating and they both continue to drain US resources. The richest country in the world is running up a vast unsustainable debt that can only end in a major devaluation of the USD, and/or an outright repudiation of the debt. Goodbye global reserve currency status. In the glory days of Empire, the US had the muscle to enforce its dictats. As the Ukraine debacle vividly demonstrates, that is no longer the case. Soft voice- big stick has given way to belligerent bossy-talk without much of a stick at all, unless Uncle Sam fast forwards to nuclear apocalypse. Short of that, when you can’t produce artillery shells in sufficient quantities to support the vassal you goaded into war, maybe it’s time to go back to the soft voice. I’m not optimistic.

Canada rejoices as Trump stops making stupid 51st State joke

Mafia Don had a lot of fun with that “Governor of the 51st State, Justin Trudeau” gag he first fired up last November. He had no idea how intensely many Canadians would take offence at that. CBC alone probably racked up a few hundred hours of on-air umbrage. So Trump being Trump, he obviously had to use it at every opportunity. The Globe and the CBC were aghast that not even King Charles or our EU allies would speak up for us and protect us from hearing Trump’s stupid joke yet again. Today was Trump-proclaimed “Liberation Day,” the day the dreaded Trump Tariffs would take effect. Canada, or at least our legacy media journalists, have had months of sleepless nights waiting for the big day, and wondering how much longer we had to keep our elbows up. I tuned in the CBC coverage. The talking heads were stunned. After all these months of hyperventilating over imminent doom, Canada didn’t even get the baseline 10% tariff! And even better, not once did the Orange Oracle refer to us as the 51st State!

Reflections on the ice storm

The electricity went out here 9:30 Saturday night, and came on again about an hour ago. That’s three days and nights of no internet, no water, no home-cooked meals, no bath, no shower, and to flush the toilet I gotta mosey on down to the creek with a five gallon pail. No internet means I can’t live stream Al Jazeera’s Gaza coverage. Haven’t seen a dead baby in three days! I’m OK with that. It’s a nice break. Apparently the babies are still dying, but I appreciate the break even though they never got one. The water thing shows you how much we take for granted. You could live a lot longer without internet than you could without water. And three days without water? That’s a crisis for me, but three days can easily turn into three months or more in Sudan or Ukraine or Gaza. Three days is a minor inconvenience by their standards. When it comes to flushability, it’s a good idea to stockpile your toilet water before you actually need it. Here’s a tip; load up early in the day before you load up with a beer and a toke. The creek is well over it’s banks and it’s a bit of a muddy mess down there. One false step on the path back to the house and you’re on your ass with your empty water bucket rolling down the hill. When you need three trips to the creek for one flush it’s a long three days without electricity.

Canadian PM Carnage sparks up bromance with Mafia Don

Somehow the bankers and the billionairs understand one another. You gotta respect Mark Carney for not getting swept away by the tidal wave of patriotism that overtook our fair land after the CBC and Globe & Mail, the conjoined arbiters of goodthink in Canada, declared that a lame joke about PM Fluffy as the governor of the 51st state was actually a threat to our sovereignty. All concerned are fully aware Canada’s sovereignty, such as it was, has been frittered away over the decades, to the point the entire world knows “Canada” is just an automatic vote with the USA anytime a United Nations vote count matters. That’s a very good reason for the USA to keep at least the appearance of having allies. All these “allies” are proof of the old adage; when you’ve got ‘em by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow. Oh look! The Free World (ie the nations whose nuts are firmly in Uncle Sam’s iron grip) is backing up the leader of the free world! I for one can not share the euphoria building around the Donald- Mark bromance. At this very moment Donald is enabling a genocide in Gaza, the disembowelment of Ukraine, and the trashing of freedom of speech in America. But we gotta suck up because otherwise a couple of car plants might have to shut down. It’s all about shared values!

Canadian election; are you bored out of your mind yet?

There’s a startling difference between Yankee democracy and ours. In the USA, the campaign essentially runs four years. Trump 2.0 has been in office hardly two months and OAC is on the campaign trail, doing a national tour, rallying support for her run for the White House in ‘28! In Canada, on the other hand, we look to keep our election campaigns as short as possible - four weeks in the current tussle. For good reason; we can barely stay awake for a four week campaign! Anything much longer would completely destroy our democracy! So far the most exciting thing that’s happened is the Liberal Party swapped out Fluffy for a Goldman Sachs man. That bought them an instant 20+ points in the polls. Obviously, even loyal Liberal Party stalwarts were beyond fed-up with their perfumed poseur. Not hard to see why. Before politics, he had a grand total of two years of full-time employment - as a teacher in a tony private school. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but it looks a bit wimpy compared to thirteen years at GS, and that much again at the very pinnacle of global finance. Carnage is up against PP, a serious career politician. While Pierre never had to maintain order in a grade 7 drama classroom, he’s acquitted himself well in the drama classroom on Parliament Hill for twenty years. All the polls agree nobody else has a chance. Jag’s best hope is he might once again snatch relevance from the jaws of obscurity in case of a minority Lib government. Frankly, that’s wishful thinking. Jagmeet should resign now and make way for fresh blood in the NDP. He’s become as stale as Fluffy. So it’s a choice between the career banker and the career politician. Lets see how they compare. They both promise to stand up to Trump. They both promise to stand up to Putin. They both promise to stand up for Canada. They both promise to stand up for Ukraine. They both promise to stand up for workers. They both promise to stand up for Uighurs They both promise to spend more, much more, hundreds of $billions more, on the Canadian Armed Forces. They both promise more take-home pay for working Canadians. They both promise to solve the housing crisis. They both promise more money for retired Canadians. They both support Israel’s right to defend itself. They both believe in the ever-elusive “two state solution” that died with Izaak Rabin in 1995. They both condemn Gaza’s genocidal war on Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East… Can you see where things are going here? I’ve got a great idea. Elections Canada estimates this election will cost out at just under $600 millions. Why not just scrub the show and declare them co-PMs! That money could buy half a new submarine, and we need an entire fleet to ensure the future of our democracy. I’m sure at least the Goldman Sachs guy sees the wisdom in my words. Keep me in mind for a Senate appointment.

PM Carnage calls election; demands Canadians check couch cushions to raise $100 billion for Arctic sovereignty

Thanks to the predations of one Donald Trump, Canada has discovered the concept of “sovereignty.” In short, that’s what we pissed away over the course of many decades as our ruling class, the self-anointed “Laurentian elite,” embraced our status as a branch-plant economy and a vassal state. It’s taken Trump 2.0 for them to realize that may have been a mistake. Now they’re over-compensating. Every other day you see another desperate plea for spending billions or trillions or gazillions on cementing our sovereignty via warships and submarines and fighter jets. Because Trump! And let’s not forget the Arctic. Here’s Geoff Russ in the National Post; Canada needs an Arctic Empire, no matter the cost. Seriously? No matter the cost? Funny, that’s also trotted out in defense of warships and subs and fighter jets. A few months ago, we at least knew we were on the side of the angels, and we were willing to make sacrifices to “stand with our allies.” Then the Boss Angel, Lucifer, double-crossed us and joined Putin’s team. Oh my… What to do? It’s clear that the most important thing Canada can do at this moment is double down on military spending… or perhaps triple or quadruple down. As Mr Russ points out, our values of freedom and human rights and democracy must be preserved, no matter the cost. We must establish a robust military presence in the Canadian Arctic to defend our sovereignty. Putin, or rather Lucifer, has his eye on it for sure, and it’s gonna take a firehose of big bucks spraying non-stop before we can face down Lucifer. Indeed. Our Arctic defense force, the Rangers, patrol our North with ten year old snowmobiles and fifty year old rifles. They’re defending a Canadian Arctic population of maybe 150,000, most of whom live in tiny communities of a few hundred souls. Lucifer’s Arctic, in contrast, sports major cities and a population of at least 2,500,000 north of the Arctic circle. Instead of ten year old Ski-Doos, the Russians patrol the Arctic with state-of-the-art icebreakers, of which they have more than all other Arctic nations combined. So what is Geoff Russ saying when he says “no matter the cost?” What he and 101 other pundits are saying is we need to rubbish every present and future social program to facilitate the unlimited expenditure on war toys. Otherwise, freedom and democracy may perish! That’s total rubbish.

Ripper: the fart-making of Pierre Poilievre

Must say I was taken aback by the title of PP’s brand-spankin’-new just in time for the election biography. Ripper? The word conjures much, mostly negative to my mind. Makes you wonder what the demographics of their focus groups looked like. One of the less offensive connotations involves passing wind, or I should say, the art of the fart. Sure, everybody squeaks one out now and then, but in some environments the passing of wind will draw appreciative comment from bystanders. For example, early in my teaching career, until I gained a permanent contract that enabled me to say no, I “volunteered” to coach soccer and rugby, sports I literally knew nothing about. The team bus inevitably became a venue for competitive farting. “Ripping forth a beauty” meant you’d earned the respect of your peers. If you got really big decibels, cries of “Ripper!” resonated around the bus and fist-bumps were exchanged. The word applied both to the fart itself, and to the fartiste. Maybe that’s the Poilievre plan - to subconsciously appeal to the inner teen in every middle-aged voter.