Congrats to Steve Liebig on his re-election win!

Hey Steve, good to see you prevailed in spite of  my endorsement!

I've got nothing but respect for the folks who try to make a go of governing at the local level. Insofar as our democracy has any claim to authenticity, it's found at the grass roots of local politics. That's gotta be a thankless task. In one of my previous lives I occasionally had dealings with local officials around minor zoning variances and such, and it was always a little disheartening when county councilors began to audibly snore during my presentations.

Once you go up the value chain in power politics, you soon realize actual democracy is limited to that very elemental "grass roots" level... anything beyond that, well by golly, thank God we've got some sensible mayors who appreciate their "strong mayor" powers. That ain't democratic, but at least it gets things done! Benito would be proud, and Doug Ford is too!

God bless the folks who give up their evenings to attend council meetings. You're keeping democracy alive!

Canada joins Eurovision in bold display of solidarity with Israel

Not that I ever paid it a whole lot of attention, but after Conchita Wurst won, I had to admit it was way too avant-guardy for my simplistic level of art appreciation, and I've been blissfully oblivious to it ever since. That's why the announcement that Canada would be joining Eurovision for the 2027 season came as a surprise. What possible motivation might the Carney team have for taking this decision at this moment in time?

Here's my theory. What's been the most controversial issue for Eurovision since Conchita? That's hands down the inclusion of Israel in this European contest. While the Ashkenazi elite may disagree, Israel is not actually part of Europe. Furthermore, certain participants geographically present in Europe take exception to the inclusion of the non-European genocidal state, on the grounds that the contest is being used to cool-wash Israel's war crimes. Exhibiting the rare trait of taking a stand on principle, five European countries boycotted the 2026 competition.

Which brings us to Mark Carney's surprise announcement that Canada is gonna kick ass in Eurovision 2027! We're even further from Europe than Israel is, but hot damn, we're keen! Why?  Carney has been dogged by claims he's not doing near enough to push back against the rising tide of antisemitism that has hogged news headlines non-stop. Frankly, a lot of those headlines are horseshit. I'd be utterly shocked if any authentic Torontonians, anywhere along the Bathurst Street downtown-to-King Township corridor, and its many tributaries into the the most prosperous and consequential neighborhoods,  EVER move to Tulsa to escape rampant antisemitism in Toronto! Nevertheless, I've been treated to multiple stories across mainstream Canadian media claiming we're on the cusp of exactly that! 

So what better way to make a very public display of our support for Israel than by going all-in on Eurovision '27!  And naturally, our official government propaganda network is gung-ho! For what it's worth, it costs big bucks to enter.  How many big bucks we taxpayers are expected to fork over to this

brazen attempt to normalize the genocidal state isn't something our leaders  want us to know. Apparently it's all covered by the CBC's budget, so look for their government subsidy to rise sharply as we deploy them to do blatant PR and narrative management.

Anyway, CBC remains my default soundtrack in the car, and today they're already pushing the beejeezus out of five fresh new Canadian talents, all of them hoping to become the next Conchita Wurst.

Our tax dollars at work!

 

Tense times in the freedom & human-rights-loving democracies

 My news feeds are staggering under the sheer volume of clashing pro and not-so-much narratives around who's the fascist and who's the commie and who's the patriot and who's laughing all the way to the bank.

What we're most likely to agree on is the latter. You obviously can't shovel hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars to Ukraine, via Lockheed Martin et al, without enriching the MIC in general, and the corner-office crowd therein most of all. But that's the least of it.

We find ourselves at what I consider a novel juncture. The freedom-loving democracies of yore are today clamoring for war, and sooner rather than later. All of the freedom & human rights champions across NATO are slashing social spending to exponentially boost war prep spending, because Putin.

BTW, the Nations of Virtue were already outspending Putin 10:1 long before Mafia Don ordered NATO vassal states to double, triple, or in the case of Canada, quadruple our military spending, because Putin.

Well... all that sturm und drang shouldn't cause us to lose sight of who's laughing all the way to the bank, and that's Trump's merry posse of billionaire Zionists in general, and the Trump clan in particular.

Can Commander Cody's hotrod Lincoln outrun those Chinese EVs?

The Lincoln label has been an iconic American luxury car brand for over 100 years. In the early days they fought for pride of place against the likes of Packard, Duesenberg, and Pierce-Arrow.  In the post-war boom they and Cadillac ruled the luxe roost in the American market, at least until German manufacture rose from the ashes of WWII.

When I was a gas-pump boy at John's Supertest in my teens,  the Lincoln Mk III was the ride of choice for quite a few of the more affluent folks. Harold Knight owned a local lumber yard and pulled in once a week in his burgundy coupe with the black vinyl roof. One day he got to yacking with somebody in the store and I asked him to please move his car. He apologizes and gives me "if you wouldn't mind kid, could you pull it ahead... keys in it." That moment was the highlight of my tenure at John's Supertest!

I greatly admired the last generation of Lincoln land yachts culminating in the garish excesses of the late '70s. Remember the 1979 Town Coupe? A family of four could live comfortably in one of those while simultaneously solving the commute-to-work challenge!

I've been partial to Toyotas and Suubs most of my adult life, but there's a reason Lincoln has been on my radar of late. It's about a) towing cap, and b) depreciation. In the event the Farm Manager actually follows through on her threats to retire at 65, we might like to spend some time towing a boat or a camper. No firm plans and no fresh ideas, but it seems to be the kinda shit people do if they don't die first.  And frankly, I'm looking forward to it! 

Truth is, the tow cap on my Toyota is more a toy cap. There are certainly Toyotas with outstanding towing capacity. A Sequoia will tow any boat or camper I'd ever own. So would a Lincoln Navigator. Both run well over $100k, but here's the thing; the Lincoln depreciates 60% over five years; the Toyota depreciates  37%.  In other words, in terms of affordable tow vehicles, a used Lincoln is far more affordable than the Toyota.

Which brings us back to Commander Cody.  Since I'll never need four tons of towing capacity, I was looking at the lighter stuff. The Lincoln Nautilus caught my eye. It's got double the tow capacity of my Rav4.  It'll easily handle a little teardrop camper or a small boat. And it also has the extra-special distinction of being built right here in Ontario, at Ford's Oakville plant!

Or at least it used to be. I used to pride myself on thinking I was kinda on top of what goes on in this world, but I had absolutely no idea that as of the '24 model year, every Lincoln Nautilus sold anywhere in the world is manufactured entirely in China. 

Yup, one of the very few surviving American car brands... made in China.

New study reveals penguin farts cause climate change

Imagine my shock when I happened across this headline at Euronews; Antarctic penguins emit up to 7 million tonnes per year of methane.  Oh. My. God!!! And here we've been blaming ourselves for this disaster ever since Silent Spring came out! And it's been those gosh-darned penguins all along!

Well, this news is a real gamechanger! If it's been the penguins all along, that means all that crazy stuff like the energy transition and EVs was just the hoax Donald Trump claimed! 

Kinda hard to believe,  really. I mean, the little devils look so cute and cuddly, you'd never guess they're destroying our habitat with all that methane. Cute and cuddly they may well be, but each and every one of them is farting 7 tonnes of methane into the air we breathe. Hell, I doubt I'm putting out those volumes even since I went to the beans & cabbage diet on account of the gluten thing. And there's only one of me.

But truly, it is so refreshing when science can expose long-accepted verities as false with more science!

What would Moses do?

There's a story on view at the Jpost about Bibi putting pressure on his White House puppet to cough up a few more endorsements of The Greatest Leader Since Moses before Israelis go to the polls two days hence. Gives you a clear sense of how off-the-rails the Israeli polity has gone. It's gotta be a vanishingly small club of world leaders who imagine a Mafia Don endorsement at this moment in time would boost their fortunes!

And all too obviously, Trump is increasingly reluctant to provide such endorsements. Netanyahu's plunge into genocidal mayhem post-7.10  hasn't been as popular in America as Donald's AIPAC handlers had assumed, and he's got his own election storm-clouds gathering. Americans can't get honest news out of Israel from Western media, but al Jazeera and other non-Western platforms have been live-streaming Israel's industrial-scale mass-murder of women  and children for three years now, and to their credit, most Americans don't approve. 

The fact such an endorsement matters to Bibi speaks volumes. In the mind of The Greatest Leader Since Moses, a Trump endorsement would, even at this late hour, potentially move the needle enough to keep him in power and out of jail.

Ironically, it could potentially do the opposite for Trump!

As for what Moses would do, that's a distraction. It could be argued Bibi is not only greatest since, but GREATEST of ALL TIME! And here's why Moses 2.0 beats the pants off the original iteration. PM Netanyahu has devoted his entire career to fulfilling God's command, issued thousands of years ago, to kill all of Israel's enemies, and their children, and their dogs, and their sheep... there's more, but you probably see the drift. Moses 1.0 on the other hand was pretty loosey-goosey with God's commands even during his own lifetime, let alone thousands of years up the road.

There ya go Donnie; I figure it would please the Lord most if you cranked out a barrage of Truths over the next coupla days endorsing the war criminal, thereby, God willing, speeding the political end of you both!

Elon Musk explains never-ending Ukraine War boondoggle

Apparently the think tank here at Falling Downs is not alone in noticing the eternal feedback loop that has taken hold in Zelly's prosecution of his "defence" of Ukraine. For years now we've gone again and again through the near-defeat of the aggressor, and but for the lack of just a few crucial weapons and a few even more crucial tens or hundreds of billions of euros or USDs, we can finally free the Russian people from the evil dictator Bad Vlad, but also restore freedom and sovereignty to Ukraine!

Elon took note of this phenomenon in a post on X yesterday, in which he took the critique to the next level. According to him, this cycle keeps repeating because the folks approving ever more billions, and giving away NATO's armory, personally benefit from this absolute waste of taxpayer dollars. Of course they do! Not many pols in the liberal democracies are willing to risk donations from the war profiteers by calling out this massive criminal waste of euros, USDs, and Ukrainian lives.

Thanks for that insight, Elon! Let's take it to the logical next level. For the ruling junta in Kyiv, Russia's "unprovoked, illegal, full-scale invasion" is the gift that keeps on giving! How else do you imagine the Kyiv Bentley dealership clawed its way to the top of the European Bentley sales charts... from dead last just five years ago!