Mark Carney proves he was just joking around with that whacky Davos speech

What a jokester this guy is! What a kidder! He had the entire world agog at his affrontery, his bold defiance of Empire! Yup, we're all sick and tired of a world where the Big Dogs do whatever they want, regardless of the norms they impose on the rest of the world! Mere weeks after that anti-Empire shot heard 'round the world captivated the media, the US Empire, together with its trusty vassal Israel, launched an unprovoked war against Iran. According to the Nuremberg war crimes tribunal, that's the crime of crimes where war crimes are concerned. There is no question that this illegal invasion of Iran is the most egregious example conceivable of a Big Dog shitting all over international law to impose its will on weaker nations. So what has been the response of the hero who delivered that sharp rebuke of US impunity at Davos? Why, every public utterance on the matter has been in full support of US and Israeli war crimes! What a phoney!

CBC will have us dining on pie in the sky till we die

Back in the pre-digital era, a crazy power-mad empress in France once advised her subjects, starving due to a bread shortage, to eat cake instead. That's a quote that has ever after served as a marker of elite detachment from reality. CBC today offers some hope for this world. Just after a spot of bad news about some youthful gangbangers shooting up the Toronto Salsa Festival, they sprung a good news story about how we are destined to get yucky stinky diesel engines off our highways. Yup, Canada is a world leader, or at least maybe not too far behind the actual leaders, in the race to replace diesel with anything but diesel. According to the CBC, once the world comes to its senses, Canada will possibly maybe be a world leader in providing clean and ridiculously virtuous hydrogen to replace diesel! That's a beautiful story, but try this little experiment. Next time you're out on a road trip, and you pass a truck stop, cruise through the acres of trucks parked and count the number of hydrogen-powered trucks. I'm guessing you won't need more than the fingers of one hand to keep track. Meanwhile, the same CBC home page barely mentions that USA and Iran are "exchanging shots." Oh ya! Not only that, but the Towelheads 'o Terror have closed the Straight of Hormuz! And while CBC is not keen to trouble you with the details, this time round we're on the cusp of global shortages of everthing from fertilizer to helium to sulfer to diesel. As Canada's official propaganda network, it's their job to keep us entertained, distracted, and ignorant. Once all those diesel trucks are permanently stranded at Irving and Husky truck stops all along the Trans Canada Highway, no doubt they'll hector the truckers about why they didn't switch to helium sooner!

Canada's submarine fleet was a joke in 2013 - it's only been getting funnier ever since

I was busy mocking our laughable "fleet" all those years ago. If you recall, somehow some very gullible experts decided to buy four obsolete British subs which were otherwise destined for a beach in India. Here you go:***** Saturday, August 31, 2013 Entire Canadian Navy in dry-dock after mishap at sea Both ships of the Royal Canadian Navy were being towed to port yesterday after running into each other. Navy Lt. Raul Pendergast says initial reports suggest that both Captains may have been texting while driving. If that is confirmed it would be a violation of Navy rules of conduct. The RCN only permits the use of smart phones while its ships are at anchor or in dry-dock. One of the most sought after assignments in the Canadian Navy is with the submarine fleet because all four submarines have been dry-docked for the past 14 years. While at one time that fact made the sub fleet something to guarantee death by boredom, the advent of the iPad and smart phone has made it highly desirable. Swabbies assigned to the Halifax dry-dock where the Canadian sub fleet undergoes a perpetual "refit" report that a typical day consists of eight hours sleep and sixteen hours spent surfing the internet. ***** Thirteen years on, it's noteworthy that today gaming skills are considered a bonus in fresh recruits!

Canada's first Hindu cabinet minister is a know-nothing windbag

I happened onto a EuroNews interview with our Foreign Minister Anita Anand this morning. With all the heavy hitters in attendance at the NATO pow-wow in Ankara, somebody had to draw the short straw. Anita made all the right noises. Ukraine has turned the tide, Russia is on the brink of collapse, Ukrainian victory is in the bag, and our fleet of new submarines serves notice to Russia and China that we're serious about protecting our Arctic sovereignty. That's the script, and she's sticking to it. Let's start with a few facts. We have allegedly contracted for a fleet of 12 German-built diesel-electric submarines at an estimated $2 billions per unit. The first four are to be delivered by 2034, six years hence. At the moment, China is building six new diesel-electrics per year. Assuming they don't scale up going forward, that means by the time Canada takes delivery of the last of those German-built vessels around 2040, China will have added at least 80 new subs to its fleet. Do we really think parking half a dozen German submarines at either end of what we call "the Northwest Passage" will keep China out? Our Arctic sovereignty is doomed if we think we'll prevail in a submarine war. That's without even considering Russia's Arctic footprint. Russia has more soldiers on permanent bases above the Arctic Circle than Canada has residents there. Over half of the global pop north of the Arctc circle is Russian. They have by far the world's largest icebreaker fleet. They're serious about their Arctic sovereignty. Canada talks a big game. The reality is Canada's Arctic is defended by our "Rangers," who just had their WWII era Lee-Enfield rifles upgraded to, I shit you not, "state of the art bolt-action carbines with a ten shot magazine!" Then there is the unspoken subtext that German technology is so vastly superior that it's worth paying a premium for. We know from Chinese export deals that were made public that they sell their diesel-electrics in the $300 -400 million range. In other words, we could buy four subs from China for the price of one from Germany. Chinese tech generally, in terms of cars, electronics, and weapons systems are at least the equal to German industry, and are often clearly superior. Why would their submarines be any different? At the end of the day, apparently, it all boils down to "values." Anita stressed that the democratic nations of NATO have them and the bad guys don't. Hmm... let's ponder that for a moment. By far the most crucial enabler of the ongoing genocide in Gaza is NATO boss Uncle Sam. The second is Germany. Alrighty then, values it is!

Carney announces only 9 countries support the Defence, Security and Resilience Bank, 7 of which are bankrupt

Reuters reported today that PM Mark Carney announced the list of countries who have pledged support for this new lender of last resort, to be based in Canada. Ominously, other than Canada, most of the support for this boondogle comes from countries already technically bankrupt. Here's the list: Albania, Belgium, Greece, Latvia, Luxembourg, Romania, Turkei, and Ukraine. Take Belgium and Luxembourg out of the mix, and all the support for this so-called "bank" comes from economic basket cases. Not hard to see why any country with a serious economy is giving this stinker a wide berth. There are sound reasons why no commercial bank on planet earth will touch these losers with a ten-mile pole! But here comes the favorite Banker of the Globalist elites riding to the rescue with a made-to-order "public-private-partnership" that will backstop Big Bank loans to them! That's why the Big Bank Bosses all agree this is a Great Idea. In Canada, our legacy media seem to be promoting this as a great idea. The new HQ for this new bank will be based in Canada after all, and will allegedly create 3500 well-paying jobs. Ya, and insofar as that ever comes close to being true, every one of those 3500 paycheques will come from the pockets of the Canadian taxpayer.

RIP Johnny Hirtle

They say somewhere inside anybody celebrating their 70th birthday, there's a 17 year old wondering what the hell happened. You gotta admit that it's really hard to deny your age when it starts with the number seven. As it happened, it was just a few months after my 70th I was diagnosed with congestive heart failure, and it was just a few months before his 70th that Johnny was diagnosed with lung cancer. Almost seems like our meters are running down about the same rate. Which should not come as a surprise. We are, after all, descended from the same hardy Prussian gene pool. Technically, we were second cousins, his family emmigrating from the same Bavarian village a year or two after mine (if your wondering how Prussians ended up in Bavaria you've got some reading to do). For the first year or two we all shared the same roof, first on Derry Street, and then on Neeve Street in the Ward. The Derry place was a rental, and new immigrants had to do what they do to this day; stall the landlord at the front door while spiriting a dozen non-existent guests out the back door whenever he stops by for a look! In due course the Hirtles found themselves out of the Ward and in a new house in the northern 'burbs. My family became the country bumpkins, or at least that's what I thought, whereas my cousins were sophisticated urbanites! When we all hit driving age it was only natural I'd be hanging out in town more. In the first few years I spent many winter hours playing pick-up hockey at the rink behind the local school. It was nothing for Johnny to spend eight or twelve or even more hours every day with his skates on in those years. Of course, playing hockey on an outdoor rink past midnight wasn't the only urban temptation city life offered. Wasn't long before Johnny and his peer group were eagerly experimenting with the cornucopia of new recreational drugs that were flooding the market. In fact, Johnny and Tim McIvor were my tour guides on my first-ever LSD trip! You cannot imagine a more loving pair of shepherds helping a neophyte through an entire night of utterly bonkers hallucinations. Ya right... anyway, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger... As we outgrew the worst excesses of our youth, Johnny and I married aound the same age, bought houses around the same time, started families around the same time, and suffered marital collapse around the same time. By that time life had taken us in radically different directions. Johnny stuck with GE-Westinghouse-ABB till the bitter end, and the end truly was bitter. On the other hand, I had the dumb luck to transfer to a teaching career. I figured it would be awhile before they could move teaching jobs to Mexico, whereas most of our industrial base was already gone. Ironically, I recently read an article about the difficulties facing America's re-shoring of heavy transformer production, because the dumbfucks have realized Mexico and China cannot be relied on. One of the critical bottlenecks is the absence of skilled core-winders. Imagine that! An entire craft tossed in the trash as redundant, and then back in high demand when it's too late! That was a workforce that had been under threat for so long I think many convinced themselves it would never happen. Just months before the shit hit the fan I recall Johnny telling me he'd switched to steady day shift so he could spend more time with Kellan and Kari. He was planning his life around the job right untill the day his employer destroyed his livelihood. I know it's pointless to go over the might-have-beens once somebody's gone, but my late father, who spent way too much time haunting any arena where his sons might be playing, to the point where he was an unofficial hockey scout, often saw John play, and opined regularly that Johnny could have gone places. Indeed, Johnny played in a Guelph beer league packed with guys who had played Jr. A or professionally, so who knows? Till well into his 50's Johnny was more than holding his own against ex-Jr A guys half his age. That all ended with a detached retina, and at least I can admit he beat me to that milestone by about ten years! I'd only seen John intermittently in recent years, usually on the rare occassion when he attended a family get together. I was shocked when I was forwarded an email from his sister Reg last September announcing John could be in hospice in a matter of days. The last time I saw Johnny was a few days after I got that email. I arrived unannouned and rang the buzzer a half dozen times, to no avail. I go knock on his patio door. "Hey Dieter! Great to see you! Come on in!" For a guy who was hospice bound, he was remarkably cheerful. He was busy changing the bandages on his legs. He was looking forward... to the Blue Jays game that night, to the Raptors season, to the Leafs, to tomorrow's cross-word puzzle in the Globe, because he'd already done that day's... I left him that afternoon convinced a guy with so much to look forward to had a few years left, for sure. Sorry I was wrong. Happy trails to ya, Johnny! I'm hoping someday we'll get together again with a 500 horsepower SuperBee and a straight stretch of road. Love you, bro!

How CBC fuels the residential school denialism they pretend to fight

A headline at the CBC's Front Burner program this morning asks the rhetorical question;"What's fueling residential school denialism?" The story leads off with a photo of the Kamloops Residential School. The caption under the photo repeats the same brazen lie CBC first broadcast to the world in May of 2021; "The remains of 215 children were discovered buried near the former Kamloops Indian Residential School." That's the sort of slovenly reportage that gets skeptics asking why taxpayers are subsidizing this nonsense to the tune of $1.4 billion per year. The original whopper had an element of plausibiliy about it, but more than five years on, surely everone in Canada knows exactly zero remains of any children have been found. Recycling old lies won't win the anti-denialist activists many allies.