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The Long Slow Betrayal of Ukraine
I want to take my eyes off the train wreck that is the current US Administration under Donald Trump, and review the history that has led to the current situation in Ukraine. I anticipate that Trump might well deliver a fatal stab in the Ukrainian back. Before that happens, let’s take a look at how…
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Hedging Your Bets – the Smart Way
Recently my wife asked me “what do we do to protect ourselves against what Trump is doing to the economy? What do you think is going to happen”? The answer of course was “I don’t know”. The people in charge of this country don’t seem to know, so why would I pretend to have a…
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Democracy A L’Orange
Donald Trump IS the news cycle these days. There are so many outrageous things happening that you cannot possibly react to them all. And this is exactly what that narcissistic orange pinhead wants. In 2017, Axios reported that “Before taking office, Mr. Trump told top aides to think of each Presidential day as an episode…
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What’s so Bad About Annexation?
(Thanks to Ben, who helped create this cartoon. But the responsibility for the copyright infringement is mine) Donald Trump wants to make us part of the United States, and I know that is causing a great deal of anxiety for some people. Relax, people! It isn’t going to happen! And even if it does, it’s…
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Insanity Trumps Climate Science
Donald Trump started off his second term as US president on January 20th in his normal bombastic, moronic, self-aggrandizing, and narcissistic way. I was going to use the word style, but decided not to because we should never associate the word style with the Donald. I substituted manner, but decided that he didn’t have manners…
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Energy, AI, Climate Change, and Crime
I know. You looked at that title and said “Well! It will be interesting to see how he ties all that together.” I’m sorry to disappoint. It didn’t really tie together very well. It’s turned out to be something more of a rambling chain-of-thought exercise. It all started when my friend Malcolm approached me in…
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Policy vs Personality
(cartoon courtesy of Sue Dewar in the Toronto Sun) In my last article I suggested that voters would be influenced by the three P’s of politics – Personality, Performance, and Policy. I then digressed from discussing Jagmeet Singh as a personality, and a potential prime minister and wandered into a somewhat truncated discussion of NDP…
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That Sick Sikh Singh
Oh dear, I fear this might be a very Trudeau-like epistle – full of apologies. The first one is the apology for that disrespectful title, but it struck me funny and I just had to stick with it. The second apology is for any racist tone you might detect in the article. I honestly try…
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Ten Years of Political Debris
(Caricatures by Niall O’Loughlin) I wrote in my last essay, in which I ranted about the lies, disinformation, and nastiness of the populist Pierre, that I was reluctant to enter into the world of commentary about partisan politics. However, having done it once, it seems to me that it would be only fair for me…
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My Unbroken Canada
(Cartoon by Graeme MacKay in The Hamilton Spectator) I find it hard to watch Canadian television these days because at some point the program Pierre Poilievre shows up, telling us that “Canada is broken”. I don’t think we really need an election right now, but honestly, I might welcome one if only because it will…
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Gas Price Gouging
I drive a “luxury” vehicle. It’s a second-hand, 13-year old Lexus IS 350 with an annoying scratch in the paint on the trunk. It only has about 160K on the odometer, and since I rarely drive more than 15000km/year, it’s likely to do me for a long, long time. However, it takes premium gas, and…
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Getting Trucking on the Right Track
In early August, I drove down to Cape Breton and then to my birthplace, beautiful PEI. It was a really good drive. I was really pleased with how well the traffic flowed, generally. I went through some construction zones, it being construction season (the only other season in Canada being dead of winter), but even…
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Judicial Integrity in Canada
Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator Judicial integrity in Canada is still a thing. South of the border, it’s appears to be just a myth, or a sad memory. I want to do a review of the US situation, with an update covering some of the US courts’ more recent and inexplicable decisions.…
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Are Exported Emissions Really So Bad?
On June 20th, CBC News featured a story on what they called Canada’s exported emissions. The gist of the story is captured nicely in the first sentence of their story – “While Canada claims to be a climate leader, the oil and gas we export to other countries have the potential to produce more emissions…
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De-Bunking Anti-Vax Myths
In my first article on vaccination, I tried to convince you that a population-wide adoption of vaccinations is the best shield we have against a number of dangerous diseases. In the second, I showed that while there are a number of somewhat rational excuses for not getting vaccinated, (or more importantly getting your child vaccinated),…
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Anti-Vax Ideas – Rational but Wrong
I have tried to convince you that data shows that vaccines work, and that maintaining a whole-population vaccine coverage shield protects us all. It follows that those who actively oppose vaccination – anti-vaxxers – are in fact sabotaging the public health programs that are designed to protect their own children…and yours. So, why would people…
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Refusing Measles Vaccine Is A Rash Decision
If, like me, you were a child in the late 50’s, you were probably not terribly concerned by the recent stories about an uptick in measles cases in Canada and other rich-world countries. Health Canada reports that as of May 4th, there have been 75 reported cases of measles in Canada this year. There were…
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Student Protestors – Emotion vs Rationale
Prompted by the recent student demonstrations against Israel, I re-read the article I wrote on October 27th, just three weeks after Hamas let slip the dogs of war. Rarely have I felt as prescient as I did upon reading what I wrote in October. It’s probably self-congratulatory, but allow me to quote from my own…
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Maple Leaf Problems with Defence
No, this is not an article about hockey. That was just a teaser to suck in readers who thought they were going to see a life-long Leafs fan losing his mind about the fact that they can’t ever seem to protect a lead and close a game out. Sorry gang, not happening. Instead, this article…
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Stop this Carbon Tax BS Already!
It is March 31st today as I start writing this. I still have a lot of reading to do before I finish it. I fearlessly predict that before I finish this, April 1st will have come and gone and we will all have survived the increase in the carbon tax which will add 3 or 4 cents…