Alcohol and testosterone and a 500 horsepower car... what could go wrong?

Out of the blue I got a call from my old pal Barney (not his real name) last night. Gotta say this took me by surprise, as I think I've only talked to the fucker once in the last forty years, which was on the occassion of his 50th birthday. But way back when we were troubled youths, as all youths inevitably are, we were pretty tight. Barney shared my appreciation for a dram of the good stuff now and then, and he was also an early afficianado of the weed 'o wisdom. Unlike me, however, he had true leadership skills, and was forever leading not only me, but the rest of the crew, into one regrettable shit-show after another. I'm not talking about serious crime here. I'm talking about juvenile hooligansim that only gets massively amplified after you've had a few drams. And it takes its toll on the pocketbook. If defending yourself in a Barney-instigated bar-room brawl got you an assault charge, your lawyer fees fucked your beer and weed budget for months! But I have to tip my cap to Barney in the 500 hp department. Anybody who knows anything about the muscle car era remembers the 375 hp Nova SS 396. That was the solid lifter version rumoured to make 500 hp in factory trim. That was a big deal at the time. Barney owned two of them! Today every Tesla on the road can beat it in a drag race. Alas, adolescence doesn't last forever, and we managed to skip the dying young option on life's journey. And here we are, at an age it never occurred to us that we'd ever get to! That's gotta be worth a celebratory dram or two!

Oopsie! My bad! Turns out Epstein was working for Russia, not Israel!

Ya, I obviously got it wrong. Seems all that stuff I read over the years, claiming Jeffrey was Mossad, was Russian disinfo all along! I should have known! Silly me! My face is... not just red, but bright cherry red, or maybe even fire-engine red!... or, God forbid, "red" like Red China! The New York Post spilled the truth today. In hindsight, it's so obvious. All those billionaires and famous people flocking to Jeffrey's island were closet commies hoping to support Putin's rebuild of the Soviet Empire! I noticed traffic to the previous post stopped a couple of hours after posting. Hopefully this confession will fix that.

Epstein; most brilliantly successful Israeli operative in Mossad history

Think about this; anybody who hears the name Epstein today immediately equates it with the sex-trafficking narrative. That's because 99% of mainstream news focuses exclusively on that story. The far more important story is deliberately squashed. The by-far more important story is that the guy who came outta nowhere to rub elbows and whatever else with the global elite for the last fifty years was a star spy for Israel the whole time. There was a Canadian journo based in NYC in the '90s who was writing about Epstein running a massive blackmail operation. Even the most valuable intelligence assets inevitably pass their best-before dates. Robert Maxwell fell off his yacht. Jeffrey Epstein killed himself. The archive of Davos-crowd porn in Epstein's possession obviously went somewhere. No wonder so many A-listers are acting weird, starting with Mafia Don himself.

RCMP busts white supremacist terror cell in Quebec

Last July Canadians were stunned to learn that an armed militia with links to Canadian Armed Forces had been discovered in Quebec. We were told the group of four dudes planned to capture some territory near Quebec City. Using that as their base, a mere 450 km from Ottawa, they then planned to overthrow the Canadian government and install themselves. For better or worse, a media ban was put on the story, perhaps to hide the true depravity of this devious plan, or perhaps to hide the fact that this is just the latest crock-o-shit in a line of terror hoaxes managed by CSIS, the RCMP, and their political masters. (Check out my various Korody-Nuttall "Tards 'o Terror" missives.) A number of media challenged the news blackout and this past week it was lifted. Well, these were a bad bunch of hombres, to be sure. Once CSIS tipped off the Mounties, surveilance teams tracked the scoundrels throughout Quebec and New Brunswick for over two years. During that time the terrorists would sometimes get together for camping trips that involved plenty of guns and booze. They could have followed them for a few more, but fate intervened. The terror mastermind, one Marcc Chabot, the veritable Bin Laden of this would-be terror cell, was apparently suffering from depression, and fearing he was becoming suicidal, his wife made a 911 call. Those calls always include the cops, and rather than risk their star perp offing himself and blowing their case, they decided to pounce. Turns out the land these terrorists were planning to seize was in the Zec Batiscan Neilsen, a "controlled harvest zone," also known as a hunting preserve. The almost 900 sqare km park is the go-to spot for moose and black bear hunting in the province. That's how sneaky these misfits were, knowing the sound of the sniper rifles they were training on would be hidden in the general cacaphony one might expect in such an environment. No terror team is complete without informants, and those employed in this case have come up with some truly damning evidence. For example, one of the suspects is on video making "a hand gesture associated with white supremacists." If that's not bad enough, here's what CBC news revealed today; "... the informant allegedly told police there were derogatory jokes and comments aimed toward Jewish people and that Chabot reportedly mentioned that he didn’t believe in equality between the sexes and used degrading language when talking about women." I'm guessing it was the Jew jokes that got Ottawa's attention. For what it's worth, here's the alleged motivation of the terror mastermind, as reported by the Globe & Mail. "...he expected an impending crisis would unravel the world, either because of economic troubles, an attack by a foreign power, or a zombie invasion." Sounds to me like a few yobs who enjoy the outdoors, hunting, drinking, and hanging with the like-minded. Not only that, it seems they were our first line of defence against zombie invasion! I'll be following the court case with interest.

Europe in decline? Nope! Stronger than ever, claims Dopey Doug at the Globe & Mail

Last year the GDP of the EU grew by 1.4%, but inflation was 2.4%. As long as inflation trumps GDP "growth," your economy isn't growing, it's shrinking. Three countries account for over half of EU economic activity. Germany, France, and Italy all reported GDP growth under 1% last year. In other words, the industrial core of the EU economy is shrinking even faster than the economy as a whole. Globe & Mail columnist Doug Saunders, clearly a glass-half-full kinda guy, calls this "a moment of economic rebirth." According to Doug, the EU is only now emerging from a soft spot caused by "the transition away from Russian energy, a shortage of public investment, and Trump's tarrifs." That transition away from Russian pipeline gas to American LNG means energy intensive manufacturing is no longer competitive. EU's collective 200 billion+ euro commitment to Ukraine no doubt had an impact on public investment at home.Based on the numbers above, it's hard to see European heavy industry "emerging" from anything, except maybe bankruptcy, if they're lucky. Doug sees more good news in the fact that the EU has refined its borrowing rules to permit its members to take on collective debt. He approvingly cites a pending loan of $146 billions to support Ukraine, as if that will strengthen the EU economy. Doug is also thrilled to see freedom of speech being championed in Europe even as it is under attack in America. I don't know about that. Condemning Israel's mass murder and ethnic cleansing is forbidden speech on both sides of the Atlantic. Beyond that, there's a guy on trial in Poland for calling the prime minister a "moron." German Chancellor Mertz has filed hundreds of criminal complaints over the course of his political career against commenters who offended his feelings. Far as I know, insulting politicians remains normal practice across the political spectrum in America. Doug is particularly distraught over Trump's deportation drive. "As U.S. cities have exploded in deadly violence, turning places like Nicollet Ave. in Minneapolis into “no-go” zones where armed officers menace and sometimes kill citizens, Europe has entered a time of profound peace. Last year saw many European countries report the lowest crime figures in at least a decade – and Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Poland and Britain all are now recording the lowest violent-crime and overall-crime rates in their recorded history." In the first place, it's silly to claim "armed officers menace and sometimes kill citizens" as something new in American society, introduced by Trump himself. That's just stupid. Armed officers menacing and sometimes killing citizens is as American as apple pie! Secondly, if Doug acquainted himself with the latest stats he'd add the USA to the list of countries with record declines in violent crime. That would defeat Dopey Doug's purpose, which is not to tell us anything about Europe, but to assure Globe readers that he really despises Donald Trump. Here's another awkward fact, Doug; there were more deportations under Clinton, Bush, Obama, and Biden than there have been under Trump.

Globe & Mail opinion writers express their Canadian patriotism by calling Trump names

In particular, their glee over Carney's alleged calling out of Trump at Davos doesn't appear to be based on what our PM actually said. A careful reading shows Carney was calling out the "rules-based international order," which he claims has been a fiction "for decades." In other words, long before Trump. Good on Carney for that. The prevailing view, not only in the pages of the Globe but at the CBC, is that the rules-based order was chugging along, happily bringing peace and prosperity, American style, to all who dare to sip from the cup of Freedom, Democracy, and American hegemony, until the wicked and evil and insane rapist and probable child molester Donald Trump got his tiny grubby hands around its throat. As Carney rightfully pointed out, that's been bullshit for decades. Canadian elites, American Empire Loyalists all, believe Trump is the problem, and that absent a Trump victory in '24, Canadians would still be basking in the eternal sunshine of perpetual rule of the Clintons' Democratic Party machine. Grow up! If that's not enough, quite a few patriotic pundits are taking oodles of umbrage at Trump's claim that some of the NATO allies did their best to avoid the heavy lifting in Afghanistan. Does he have a point? All 30 NATO members contributed troops to the International Security Assistance Force, yet only two members, USA and UK, sustained 90% of combat fatalities (Canada had 3rd highest total). On a per-capita basis, Estonia, Denmark, US and UK are the only members with more casualties than Canada's 4.7 per million. Compare that to 1.4 in France, .88 in Italy, .76 in Germany, and a miniscule .09 for Belgium, home of NATO's HQ! Trump is obviously right; many NATO partners have been content to let other's do the heavy lifting.

Carney spills the beans; "Rules-based International Order" has been bullshit all along

Mark Carney made quite an impression with his turn at the pulpit in Davos yesterday. He let the cat out of the bag; the much ballyhooed rules-based order has always been what Russian disinfo claimed, ie Uncle Sam made the rules and the rest followed orders. According to Mark, more powerful nations have always used their relative advantages to get their way over weaker ones. Yup, this has been banal truism numero uno since cavemen invented geopolitics. It's hardly a fresh new insight. The only reason it's remarkable is because it fell from the lips of PM Carney, the ultimate company man, faithful steward of the Capitalist Way and loyal servant to the Billionaire Class. There has never been a more committed champion of the status quo than Mr Carney. From Harvard to Goldman Sachs to Brookfield, he rolled in the biggest of big leagues. If a true believer like Carney is losing faith, what's next?