Canada keen to commit half a trillion dollars to obsolete weapons

The Globe & Mail had a full-page fluffer yesterday re: Carney's historic choice; which foreign-built attack submarine should Canada buy? There is of course another possible answer; let's not buy any! Parse the Globe story and you'll find who the preferred target of those new submarines will be; Russia. We are told the lifetime costs of this pending contract will be north of $100 millions. Here's a thought. Ukraine, with no navy to speak of, has pretty much shut down Russia's Black Sea Fleet. How? With drones. Drones are the future of warfare. Only fools would commit billions to buying submarines that can be destroyed with low-cost drones. Same is true for our other RCN boondoggle, the "Surface Combatant Program." That's pencilled in at over $300 billion. Any one of our new billion dollar frigates can be sent to the bottom by a determined adversary with relatively simple and cheap technology. We're up to $400 billions here. Throw in the F-35 deal and the NORAD "Golden Dome" and we're heading towards a trillion right smartly. This is going to choke off social spending for the next fifty years. That's the spending that makes Canada a decent place to live, or it used to, back when we could afford it. That was before Russia started threatening our democracy though, so we have no choice.

Carney promises Canadians lower taxes, lots of high-paying union jobs, and a competitive economy that builds what the world needs

As anybody with two functioning brain cells can readily deduce, Carney's roadmap for Canada is a mashup of wishful thinking and delusion. "Fortune may favour the bold," but not until the bold move beyond empty platitudes and hollow declarations of virtue. Think the world loves us for "our values?" Maybe, but I'm guessing about zero percent of our foreign trade happens because our counter-parties are choosing to buy Canadian because they fancy our values. I rather expect these decisions are based on more traditional attributes, such as the ability to provide quality product at a reasonable price. And that's exactly why it's such a struggle to diversify away from our over-dependence on the US market. Geography gives us an advantage over India or China in the US. Unfortunately, aside from a handful of natural resources, there is nothing available from Canada that is competitive in the global marketplace. In fact, our manufacturing sector is globally uncompetitive, and one thing I can predict with some certainty is that the road to changing that will definitely NOT involve "creating lots of high-paying union jobs." So what was the point of Carney's delusional half-hour pep talk last night? He's applying the lube, as it were, buttering us up for the Big Budget Reveal coming on November 4. It is on that day that we'll learn just what sacrifices our bankster-in-charge has in mind for us. Get ready for the austerity enema of a lifetime!

Trump rushes to demolish White House so Putin can't bomb it

This is time-honoured Yanqui logic, along the lines of "we had to destroy the village to save it." We had to destroy democracy to save it. I gotta say that's one messed-up trip Mafia Don is taking his people on. I also have to admit I'm shocked at how eagerly wide swathes of the "Western World" are gleefully anticipating a showdown with Russia. There was a time Trump seemed to rise above the institutionalized Russophobia, but I'm not so sure anymore. The NATO allies realize they are a nullity without America. They will soon enough realize that even with America, NATO has already lost to Russia. We continue to prevail on the PR front, though. Western headlines are announcing Ukraine's purchase of up to 150 Gripen fighter jets from Sweden!Boo Ya NATO! I'm guessing Russia can shoot them down faster than Sweden can build them or Ukraine can buy them. I'm also guessing there's lot's of smart people crunching the numbers on the Ukraine file and concluding it's time to cut bait and move on.

Caesar humiliates his vassals at his peril

Shakespeare, and history too, are full of morality tales where the flawed ruler gets too big for his codpiece, and begins to imagine himself the master of his universe. Or possibly even Master of The Universe. Did you see Trump in Egypt? He'd invited a bunch of subservient "world leaders" to the signing ceremony of the greatest peace deal in history. In his speech he thanked them for coming. Why were they there? There was no role for them whatsoever, but Trump just wanted the world to see that all these world leaders would drop everything and fly to Egypt on 20 minutes notice. That's basically a humiliation ritual. Trump seems rather fond of this sort of thing. In both Shakespeare and history, the vassals have been known to resent their humiliation to such an extent that they will begin to conspire against Caesar.

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!