Canada eyes putting nuclear reactors on the moon

I couldn't make that up; it's a headline from the CBC News website today. Since Canada hasn't built any nuclear powerplants since Darlington was completed over 30 years ago, you'd think maybe that's a longshot. It's an even longer shot considering we don't actually have any way to get to the moon. I guess our lunar nuclear reactor could hitch a ride on one of Musk's Mars missions. This story is an example of the "we coulda been a contenda" genre of Canadian journalism. We coulda been a contenda in AI, in quantuum computing, in cellphone tech, in clean power, but every time, we squander our advantages and become also-rans. If we all pull together we can make Canada great again! Diversity is our strength, after all! The main source for the story is Dan Sax, a self-proclaimed "visionary motivated to move the needle for humanity." Dan has quite the resume. Everything from developing the Mickelson National Golf Course in Alberta to engineering the Hudson Bay Company's purchase of Germany's biggest department store. A true renaissance man, in 2020 Dan had the foresight to register the name "Canadian Space Mining Corporation," and that's how he became an expert source for the CBC. It should be noted that before being motivated to move the needle, he had already moved the bong for humanity by founding the first exclusively cannabis-focused real estate fund, Sensi Properties. You'd think a CBC journo would have more robust bullshit detection skills than what's on display in this story. Canada isn't leading anything when it comes to small modular reactors. Installing four GE-Hitachi SMRs at Darlington doesn't make them Canadian technology. The world leaders in SMRs are Russia and China. Between them, Russia and China produce upwards of four million STEM grads per year. Canada produces about 64,000. And they're not dumbing down their STEM curricula to accomodate "equity-deserving communities." So, Dan's company isn't going to be doing any mining, not in space and not anywhere else. Instead, he's already eyeing a future in health care, energy, and climate change abatement. Were I a betting man, I'd bet these ventures will go the way of Sinsi Properties; up in smoke!

Carney's bold adventure

That's quite the corner PM Carney has managed to box himself into. On the one hand, he was all "elbows up" back in the early days of the Trump regime. We didn't need those damned obnoxious Yankees anyway, especially not those vulgar Trumpists. So fuck 'em! We'll go make some tighter alliances with our allies! Within a month of that declaration, Carney witnessed all those allies arrayed in front of Daddy Trump like errant schoolboys in front of the headmaster. Oh well; on to plan B, I reckon... kissing Trump's ass! So there he was yesterday in the Oval Office, or maybe that was just the press office, with his posse, seated across from Trump's crew, exchanging witticisms with Donny J, altogether the picture of bonhomie. There was absolutely no indication that Trump was prepared to offer up anything other than a photo-op. Nevertheless, Carney claimed the meeting a success. He is all in for stroking Daddy Trump. He is flirting, and I suspect we may be into the heavy-breathing phase, with committing Canada to many $hundreds of billions in spending in order to meet the NATO spending targets dictated by none other than Donald Trump! There is still time to stop this impending fiscal disaster in its tracks. Canada does not need a multi-billion submarine program. Canada does not need a multi-billion frigate program. Canada does not need a multi-billion dollar fighter jet program! Bullshit, bullshit, and bullshit! If we go down the road of rampant militarization to appease Mafia Don, in the hopes he will cut us some slack in the tariff war, we can kiss goodbye any hope of bringing our health care, schools, and infrastructure up to 21st century standards. On the other hand, I have a hunch Mr Trump doesn't give much thought to Carney's dilema, having to chose between guns and butter, as it were. Donny J got bigger fish to fry! Way bigger! There's the upcoming Venezuela war, to liberate the Maduro-oppressed oil-fields once and for all. And of course the next sneak attack on Iran, which nobody knows is coming, wink wink! Last but not least, Donald's gotta keep up the pressure on the Nobel Committee for that Nobel Peace Prize! Suck on that, Canada!

Canada well-placed to keep shovelling sh!t for Uncle Sam

So how is our newly-minted "serious" PM doing in diversifying Canada's trade relationships away from the USA? Well, it looks to me as though progress is, to say the least, somewhat tentative. We are allegedly well-placed to become an energy super-power. The world is itching to buy more of our liquified natural gas. Unfortunately, the natural gas itself is not well-placed, and instead dwells in hard to reach places like the Mackenzie River valley and the Arctic. We're also well-placed to become a rare earths powerhouse. Once again, the rare earths are themselves not-so-well placed, requiring all manner of pricey infrastructure, and you know how Canada does infrastructure! Then there's the further complication of the myriad sovereign First Nations well-placed to obstruct anything and everything that runs under, over, or anywhere near their territories. The PM has also touted the pioneering "small modular reactor" currently under construction at Darlington. Canada could be a world leader in exporting SMRs. Two problems with that. In the first place, China already has a functioning SMR and is working on mass production, so we're not pioneering anything. Secondly, the Darlington build involves American technology and American contractors, so it's not exactly going to get Trump's boot off our neck. All is not lost, however. Carney was well recieved on his recent trade-diversification mission to the Baltics and Poland. Alas, their combined purchases of Canadian goods in all of 2024 was less than what we sell into the US on any given day. There's a long, long way to go! While Canada flails about, pretending it's an independent country, the game of international posturing must go on. To that end, one of the dimmer holdovers from Fluffy's cabinet, the hapless Anita Anand, posted two news releases just minutes apart on October 1, both celebrating the "snap-back sanctions" engineered by the E-3, Israel's leading cheerleaders in the EU. That's where one can find the following quote: "The E-3 and the United States have repeatedly offered diplomatic avenues in good faith to Iran to avoid the snapback and reach a durable and comprehensive negotiated resolution." Ah yes! Isn't that just like the US, constantly going the extra mile in good faith and diplomacy! Nowhere is it mentioned that it was Trump who unilaterally ripped up JCPOA in 2018, and Trump who unilaterally bombed Iran just three months ago!

Canada never backs down...

A couple of days after the greatest American President in history delivered his tour-de-farce at the UNGA, it was the turn of Canada's dimwitted FM to take the podium. There followed a predictable litany of platitudes extolling Canada's exceptional virtue. We stand with our allies. We don't retreat from our duty. We'll stand with Ukraine as long as it takes... and so on. According to her, over the past three and a half years since Russia's illegal and totally unprovoked full-scale invasion, we've already stood with Ukraine to the tune of $22 billions. Canadians need to ponder that. Given all the things we're told we can't afford, like proper staffing for schools and hospitals, like affordable housing, like pensions our elders can live on, like supports for Canadians with disabilities, like universal daycare,like so many other social supports citizens in a supposedly advanced nation should be able to rely on, does it make sense to shovel $500 millions to Ukraine every month? And to promise to continue doing so "for as long as it takes?" No! And spare me the nonsense about Putin coming for the rest of the free world when Ukraine collapses. At the rate he's going, I figure another five years to victory over Kyiv, then ten years to fight his way through Poland, then at least another ten years each for the core NATO nations of France and Germany, plus a few years rolling up the minor players like the Baltics and the Netherlands. Hell, it's gonna be the turn of the next century before we have to worry about fighting the Russians on the beaches of Nova Scotia! In the meantime, the duty of our government is to the Canadian people, not people on the other side of the world.

Trump makes greatest deal in entire history of human civilization!

At least that's what he told us. Memo to Nobel Prize Committee; could you please, PLEASE give Mr Trump his damned Nobel Peace Prize already! Maybe he'll stop grandstanding... As if! Frankly, I don't think the greatest deal in the history of civilization has a prayer. In the first place, it'll never get by the ultra-nationalists in Israel. Second, I can't see where Hamas, who weren't consulted on this deal, would agree to abject surrender. Finally, dragging in the corpse of the British Empire, who engineered most of the never-ending "Middle East Crisis" to begin with, in the person of uber douche-bag Tony Blair, is an insult for the ages. No self-respecting Mohammedan can countenance such insolence. So I figure it's game on! Bring on the genocide! Finish the job, Bibi! Use Uncle Sam's no-limit credit card to deliver the final solution to the Palestinian problem. The history books await!

The fallacious framing of the Canada Post strike

Canada's fourth estate, who claim to speak truth to power, instead now content themselves with speaking power's truths to their consumers. That's how we got to a place where a significant slice of the populace finds it reasonable to buy the government's line that "we can't keep subsidizing Canada Post indefinitely." Why not? What other essential services do we threaten to shut down if they fail to produce a profit? Are schools turning a profit? Are hospitals? Is anyone threatening to shut down schools and hospitals? There's a stretch of sideroad around the corner that washes out in every rainstorm. It costs the county thousands of dollars trucking in gravel and grading the road, which has a total of six houses on it. Where's the profit in that? We have a Canadian tradition of subsidizing essential services. It's something that sets us apart from our neighbours. In America, they do expect their hospitals to make a profit! It's not the fault of postal workers that the Post Office has missed every opportunity to make itself relevant.

Former Fox News guy gets on CBC after he defects to pinko MSNBC

In case you haven't figured it out, it's Chris Hayes I'm talking about. After all, no Fox News person would make it onto the woke airwaves of CBC without such a defection. He's plugging a book he just published, "The Siren's Call," so I guess his stop at the CBC was part of a book promo tour. Chris has been around the halls of power long enough that he knows how shit works. He's been watching Trump long enough to know how Trump works. He made an interesting observation about Trump. As Chris tells it, going back to Trump's real estate days and right up to his White House tenure, when people go into negotiations with Mafia Don, they assume they're going to get the better of the glorified condo hustler sitting across from them. It's only later they realize they've been seriously pantsed. That's an astute observation. Too bad Hayes doesn't lay the blame for the serial stupidity of everybody who could have stopped Trump where it belongs; on an education system that valorizes herd thinking over critical thinking. If the herd-think declares Trump a moron who can be easily swayed, there's general agreement. It's only later that our savants, utterly out-played, question how Trump got away with this or that...