Fluffy's fried

Watched the Jody Wilson-Raybould hearing from Ottawa for a spell this evening. I think PM Fluffy's days are numbered. JWR exudes a confidence and sincerity that Justin has long lost, especially the sincerity part. Justin's hypocrisy has been exposed for all the land to see. The PM who is all about keeping politics out of the judicial system when he's doing gopher work for Donald Trump (in the Huawei case) has no qualms at all about arm-twisting his Justice minister in the SNC-Lavalin affair.

I think Trudeau should resign. The Liberal Party should have a leadership convention, which JWR could readily win, and then they'd have a chance in October. Otherwise, they're screwed.

And we'd be screwed too, because do you really think things have a snowball's chance in hell of improving under a PM Scheer?

Nope!

Ideally, we'd have a party to the left of the Liberals with a little more appeal than what we see there, but I'm not hopeful.

As for those DPA laws, how is it conceivably a "reason" to have them just because the US and UK have them? Oh, because we need to be "competitive." In the US especially, big corporations routinely get the DPA treatment time and again. It's clearly not a deterrent to corporate malfeasance.

I would suggest it's not intended to be. What it is, is a corporate get-out-of-jail-free card. Not for the company or the shareholders, but for the executives caught dealing dirty. Canada's DPA was sneaked into law in the back pages of last year's budget omnibus bill explicitly for the benefit of SNC. If we were really that concerned about the "rule of law," that should never have happened.

Interesting to look back and see what former SNC Chair Gwyn Morgan had to say when the poop was starting to hit the fan for the company back in 2013. Gwyn had absolutely no idea! I'm guessing he'd be all for the DPA. Gwyn's not a guy who believes in government regulation. We should just cross our fingers and hope the greedbags who cut ethical corners, take integrity shortcuts, and skirt the law somehow develop an honest corporate culture.


Really?

Orwell lives!

I see where Chrystia Freeland's never-ending Vixen of Virtue tour is scheduling a "Press Freedom Summit" in London this summer, but I'm not sure why. After all, Canada ranks 18th world-wide in press freedoms, according to Reporters Without Borders, while the UK ranks 40th. Isn't that a bit like Angola and Cuba co-hosting a World Hockey Summit?

I've a hunch that as we lurch towards our autumn election the media will be ramping up the booga-booga about Russian meddling. Maybe our recently announced Critical Election Protocol Group can get some pointers on sniffing out Ruskie monkey business from the pros at Britain's "Integrity Initiative."

Unfortunately, when you get to their website you find a message saying all content has been removed pending an investigation into data theft that was intended to undermine their work in defending the free world from disinformation.

The good news is that their stolen stuff is now readily available on Russian websites RT and Sputnik! Sure makes for some interesting reading. The guardians of democracy seem to be long on initiative but dangerously short on integrity. They've been busy beavers planting their chosen "experts" (Bill Browder tops one such list) in major media across all platforms and smearing the government's political enemies!

In short, it's basically an anti-Russian propaganda outfit, funded by the British government and NATO, and one thing it certainly is not about is press freedom.

Where's Chrystia when you need her?

Wake up, Chrystia Freeland! There's a couple of Saudi gals stuck in Hong Kong who desperately need your help!

Reem and Rawan would dearly love to join Rahaf Mohammed as brave new Canadians!

And let's not stop there... there must be thousands, nay, tens of thousands of young Saudi women chafing under the oppressive yoke of their fundamentalist culture.

Maybe even millions!

And let's not stop with Saudi Arabia... or with pissed off teenage girls. Surely there must be some young lads out there who are unhappy with their lot in life and would seize the opportunity to become brave new Canadians.

I say, bring them in!


Alas, I fear that the value of future photo-ops drops precipitously with each brave new Canadian, and therefore Chrystia has only a limited number of brave-new-Canadian cards in her deck.

Bald eagles at the bird feeder

We keep a couple of bird feeding stations here at Falling Downs. They're quite popular over the winter months, attracting a lot of little stuff that can't be bothered to fly south; chickadees, swallows, sparrows, woodpeckers... but that's nothing compared to what a guy down the road gets at his bird feeder.



Here's a picture from a couple years back.

Bald eagles aren't going to bother with suet and sunflower seeds. Buddy says the secret to attracting the big birds is... animal guts! He's one of the few people locally still running an old-school trap-line, which provides him an ample supply.

He says they're particularly partial to coyote guts.

Too big to fail and too big for #MeToo

I see where Roger Waters is taking some flack for his stand on the faux "benefit concert" Richard Branson is putting on for the benefit of the coup plotters in Venezuela.

What's astonishing is how the apologists for Branson are claiming he's a totally apolitical guy motivated only by his concerns for the long-suffering people of Venezuela...

Would that be this Richard Branson?



Oh lookie! It's Branson and Barry just goofing around!

And here's Ricky with Hillsie...



... and RB with the FIRST black president...



And just so you know, Sir Richard is totally bipartisan!



Sir Richard even makes time for some of the wannabees!



Justin: I love your hair man!

Sir RB: You're looking very fine as well, my good man!

---------

For a guy who is totally apolitical, Sir Richard sure sucks a lot of political ass!

Revisiting the genius of the pot-addled hillbilly in the age of political correctitude

I thought this quite clever when I wrote it almost five years ago.

Still do! In fact, if anything, it's ageing rather well!

Kap scores again

I see where Colin Kaepernick has won his beef with the NFL.

He's now cashed out twice since he realized his career was fading and he started up that political shit.

Once with that Nike advert, and how droll is that? The company world-renowned for exploiting sweatshop labour is endorsing a guy trying to make a statement for human rights?!

And now with the NFL payout, and you can be sure there's been one.

What I'm not so sure of is that claim Kraft wants him on the Pats... that's just somebody screwing with us. There's a lot of young guns out there who can cut Kap's grass without breaking a sweat.


Of course, when Kap leads the Pats to another Super Bowl next year, I'll be singing a different tune...

As for politicising sport, as noxious as it is, don't blame Kaepernick. It's the owners who politicised football, NASCAR, the NBA, and everything else. As I've said before, we'll know things are a-changin' when a bunch of white dudes driving in the Daytona 500 take a knee for the national anthem.