SpankyMcFarland

The crimes are clear to any reasonable person. Trump can’t help himself.

This makes some political sense. I for one would welcome the departure of RFKII from Democratic ranks. https://www.politico.com/news/2023/07/26/desantis-rfk-jr-fda-cdc-2025-00108305

The history of slavery and its aftermath are particularly close to home for anybody in the American South. Getting the disgraced Confederate battle flag taken down from state buildings has been a long struggle. Slavery is not like some distant, remote event in Rome or Greece. The wounds are in the classrooms themselves so care is warranted.

It would be like Russians telling Ukrainians they should be grateful for acts of kindness shown by Russian soldiers. I’m sure there are some such examples but it would be grossly offensive to hear that from a Russian. Ditto a German extolling the benefits of working as a Nazi slave-worker, something so grotesque I’ve never heard of any German doing it. If you’ve done terrible things, it’s really not your place to highlight minor extenuating facts.

The Tories have already fractured, again, and have a Trumpy rump to their right threatening to nibble at support if PP gets too reasonable. The Liberals do have debates on policy. JT would be to the left of many in the party on fiscal issues.

Well, the Russian Army isn’t collapsing quickly enough for my liking. They are still advancing in some areas.

An ambitious politician should want the Finance portfolio as it’s the number two job in our government. Of any PM hopeful the question should be asked, what sort of Finance minister would they make? Running a country isn’t all big picture stuff. In less complicated jurisdictions, Health is the most poisoned chalice - there’s always horrible news there - while the way things are going in Canada, the environment portfolio will be a formidable challenge to make or break an up-and-comer. For starters, a forest the size of India is ready to go up in smoke and our drama-drenched, on-again, off-again romance with oil will need to be managed. Let’s hope the armed forces of Russia and China don’t loom larger in the future. If they do, then Defence will have to become a much bigger post than the backwater it is at the moment. Freeland is one of the outstanding performers in the government, no question, but modern electorates want entertainment as well as competence and she may be a bit too didactic, too schoolteachery for our tastes. Someone who may be getting more attention after the shuffle, Anita Anand, seems cut from a similar mould.

Forty years ago (!), civil servant Sir Humphrey Appleby held sway over British ministers and prime ministers while the likes of Malcolm Tucker, Director of Communications, had taken over by the turn of the century. Lord knows what strange beasts steer the ship of state now. It’s a pity Canada can’t produce political shows of this caliber. The above was about the only excerpt youtube deemed safe enough to let me put up there.

The British system has stood the test of time but is showing some wear at the edges. As the PMO inexorably drains ever more power from committees and even the Cabinet, MPs have become largely redundant between elections. Opposition politicians bemoan this trend until they get into power themselves.

We should regard politics as ‘a real job’ and a bloody difficult one at that. Give me an over-prepared, well done politician over the barely seared variety any day of the week.

Who would accept losing part of their country to some criminal regime next door in this day and age? The Russians seem to think it’s 1823, not 2023, and they can still steal whatever they want. If the forces of liberty and order don’t make a stand here then all of Europe is up for grabs.

OK with the CBC gone and the likes of CTV etc. as the main broadcasters, how much local content would I get? And how much demand for change of our atrociously expensive Bell-led cell phone cartel could we expect to see in the coming decades?

Regarding that welcome rebuke of RFK Jr’s dangerously unhinged campaign by JFK’s grandson: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/jfks-grandson-calls-rfk-jrs-presidential-candidacy-embarrassment-vanit-rcna95525 The poor man doesn’t seem to know he is being used by Republicans. To repeat, RFKII is clearly not well.

And now for something completely different from Korea

You want to see sexy silver pants in action? OK, feast your eyes on Hot Chocolate: I knew I couldn’t be Errol Brown when I grew up so I dreamed of being Harvey Hinsley, the white guy beside him.

And the one and only Phil Lynott who reminds me of Amy Winehouse somehow:

Love the lyrics here.

Three from my home town:

I was eating spaghetti in a St. John’s restaurant when I first heard she was no good. Sniffed me out like I was Tanqueray, she did. And I knew I had found a.kindred spirit. Oh, Amy.

I was at a traffic lights in Newfoundland when the wobbly chorus hit me and the little South Asian guy singing about how he couldn’t be my woman with my highbrow Marxist ways.

I’m still not over this album. Bowie’s weirdness gave us all a bit more confidence about ourselves way back when. What is moonage anyway? The orchestration is just brilliant here - like the Beatles, so many surprises.

Internet trolling brought into the school curriculum. Utterly shameless. Where will this madness end?

For me one of the best moments in Narcos was when a Colombian politician, soon to be assassinated by Escobar, lost all patience during a Yankee lecture and testily remarked that the illegal drug problem was primarily a matter of American demand, not Colombian supply.

Like JT, Poilievre has excited a fair bit of silly, and at times unseemly, debate about his paternity. His biological mother’s heritage was at least partly Irish, a Farrell on her father’s side, which was touchingly noted on Facebook, but what of his father? If it is known, I honestly can’t see the downside in him talking more freely about that aspect of his life. Might humanize him somewhat.

History isn’t cyclical. It undulates. And I think we’re surfing on a wonderful wave that’s losing momentum. There are simply too many of us on this pale blue dot and we are going through Gaia’s reserves at a fearsome clip. Climate change is, well, the tip of the melting iceberg; hundreds of new environmental horrors await if we can survive our fights with each other.