Georganne Burke

A conservative political commentator and citizen of both the U.S. and Canada, who divides her time between both countries, Burke is a brilliant and objective observer of the politics of the current trade war from both side of the 49th.  (You can find her on YouTube.)

She points out things you will never hear on legacy media, but should.  Her observations about how voters have to first warm emotionally to a candidate explain why Pierre Poilievre cannot win power, even though his policies are far and away better for Canada than the duplicitous, meaningless word salads Carney is putting in the window.

Carney is actively trying to replace Canada with his 'New World Order' lunacy, while domestically stealing Poilievre's policies to win and stay in power here.  He also shamelessly promotes 'Trump Derangement Syndrome' by lying (just my opinion because he has refused to make the deal public) about why Canada pulled out of negotiations when we had essentially reached a deal.

Give her a look and if you don't agree, you have TDS.  

The other aspect of Burke that impresses me is that she has six kids, 14 grandkids and six great-grands.  This is clearly a woman who didn't rely on the state to look after her kids, made her own arrangements and kept on working.  Not to brag, but that's exactly what I did.  O.K., I'm bragging.  Her kids, by the way, are all very successful in their respective fields.

So, so much for the benefits of staying home and joining a 'Mums' Club'.  When I had kids, there was absolutely no question I would continue working, even though my employer made it very difficult to do so.

Mums' Club-ers paralyzing their minds.  

Never quit work and joined a 'Mums' Club' because you know what a 'Mums' Club' is?  It's an excuse to drink wine and gossip.  It's no Montessori, I can assure you.  And when the kids go off to school, what do the Mums do?  Why, they form a book club!  Guess what the main activity in that gang is?  You guessed it, a generous bit of the grape.

Staying at home causes what I call "personality paralysis".  Daycare provides far superior care for infants and toddlers than any walk in the park will ever do.  Burke never did any such thing and remains as sharp as a tack in her seventies.

She, not Gloria Steinem, is my idol.

 

42,000

That's the number of jobs our "genius economist" prime minister has managed to wave bye-bye to in just one month, August, as the U.S. saw robust hiring.  The latter saw a gain of more than 162,000.

Our unemployment rate remains at 6.4 percent, with employment declining in 11 of 16 sectors.  Yep, Carney's nailin' it!  A whopping 10,000 Canadians a month are decamping to the U.S.  And, while I'm at it, why do we need a governor of the Bank of Canada?  Bay Street bond traders, who seem to do a better job, are predicting a 60 percent chance of a rate hike in the coming weeks.

Is this where we're heading under Carney's "leadership"?

Maclem's main job is to ensure currency stability and avoid stagflation by monitoring inflation.  Judging by prices at the grocery store -- Carney's sacred pledge to lower them when he ran -- the whole thing seems a tad off-the-mark.

And remember Dominic Barton? He's been resurrected as chair of 'Invest in Canada', something the PM himself doesn't do.  "Dominic Barton has the experience and ambition Canada needs," Carney said.  Really?  Barton's advice has always been to get cozy with China and invest there.  

Apparently, Barton will, "work closely with provincial and municipal officials, as well as with the Major Projects office and Indigenous officials" to get the ball rolling.  Whenever you see the term, "Work with the Indigenous", you know that's the kiss of death because working with the Indigenous produces nothing.

To boot, 'Invest in Canada' has been moved under the bailiwick of Dominic Leblanc, another wildly successful negotiator.

Does any of this make any sense?  I guess, yes, if you are trying to destroy Canada because we are well on our way straight into the economic toilet.

Time travel

There is an amazing site on facebook called "Absolutely Free Photos".  If you post a picture and ask them to clean it up, hide a bulge or get rid of wrinkles, you get back the most gorgeous photos of your new (fake) self!  Here are a few examples: 

My fav.

 

Nice look.

Me, but not me.

Pretty cool!

Well, my first husband did have a BSA 650 and we took long road trips, but I never dressed like this!

I guess I actually looked like this many years ago.  Sigh..........the runway's getting shorter..........sigh

Remember the "Merit Principle"?

During the end of my "illustrious" career, I found myself working at the Public Service Commission.  Remember that bunch?  Guardians of the sacred "Merit Principle", at the time headed by Chairman Edgar Gallant, a wanna-be buddy of every deputy minister in the federal government.  That meant he had to hire whoever they proposed, rendering his sacred principle a hollow, laughable hoax.  

The Commission had been created to put an end to cronyism and inside hiring by the politicians.  It may have worked for a while, but not when I was there.  They tossed that guiding moral light overboard when someone looked around and decided they needed to start hiring more women, lots of francophones and smatterings of ethnics here and there -- the best candidate would have been a female francophone from Sierra Leone, for instance.

Let's hope that candidate is an ethnic francophone, or she won't get the job.

So, I wrote a memo destined for Gallant, stating that he should declare that the Merit Principle was being set aside to redress historical wrongs in hiring practices.  

Well, the roof came off!  My direct boss, Chuck Jeffrey, came rushing down the hall, hair on fire and launched himself into my office in a complete panic.  "You didn't send that up, did you!" he raved.  "No, I wanted your approval."  Needless to say, that memo was quickly buried, never to see the light of day, or find itself on His Lordship Gallant's desk.

Well, that never went away and the venerable Merit Principle is but a fond, faded memory.  The following is from the 'Aristotle Foundation'.  Turns out I was right 40 years ago:

____________________

"The Canadian government almost universally turns to DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) policies before hiring anyone in the public service today. 

"But is this a good thing for the country? 

"This morning, we released a new study, led by Conrad Eder, which finds that the Canadian government’s DEI policies are, in fact, eroding merit-based hiring (that old bugaboo) in the federal public service—with potentially serious consequences for the country. 

• DEI language was virtually ubiquitous, appearing in 95 per cent of job postings. More significantly, 42 per cent of postings explicitly or potentially prioritized applicants based on race, ethnicity, or other group-identity characteristics. Four per cent of postings restricted eligibility to certain groups. 

• These practices continue despite the expressed preferences of most Canadians who, in polling, support inclusion in principle but reject identity-based hiring. 

• Although Canada’s Employment Act prohibits hiring quotas, these federal employment-equity initiatives operate like a quota system.  

• Empirical evidence challenges the rationale and need for such preferential DEI job postings. Treasury Board data show most designated groups already meet or exceed workforce availability benchmarks, including at the executive level."

___________________

So, folks, DEI continues to ruin the quality of the federal workforce and it shows no sign of letting up. 

Cultural appropriation

Carney accused the U.S. of "Throwing shade".  Last time I heard that was on 'The Real Housewives of Atlanta' when the girls were drunk and slamming each other over wine.  That's a very Southern Black expression; it's not foreign policy diplomacy speak.  Why would he use that phrase?  Why is he channeling these women?  Usually I get this stuff, but this one has me stumped? 

Carney's new "Hood".

He also talked about "memes".  What's that about?!  

So, what is our uptight, button-downed PM doing?  Whatever it is, it doesn't work.  

A few home truths

So, Zelensky's popping into Toronto to continue stealing more millions from hard-working, struggling Canadians.  Why is this continuing?  Oh ya, Chrystia Freeland is over there overseeing "re-construction".  Re-construction?  There's still an active and expanding war going on!  There's no re-construction possible.  

Face it.  She's over there to make sure money gets laundered and deposited into the right bank accounts.  (Just my opinion.) 

_____________________

Gloria Steinem in the later years, still trying to look 25 -- a mistake a lot of women make.  AI is one thing for a laugh, but she was serious in her fruitless quest.

A word about Gloria Steinem.  She has died at 92, apparently still a card-carrying feminist icon for the ages.  I found her a complete hypocrite.  She always had millionaire boyfriends who bank-rolled her many liberation projects.  'Ms.' magazine, for example, was funded by one of them, Clay Felker, and when he pulled out, it went bust.

Her big "breakthrough" came when she went undercover as a Playboy Bunny and discovered there was blatant sexism in the Playboy Mansion.  Wow!  What a scoop!  Who would ever have guessed that women dressed in skimpy costumes, boobs hanging out, could possibly be sexist!  Shocking.  

From then on, she was always on a harangue about equality in a marriage and child rearing and other such matters.  Funnily enough, she never had children of her own.  

My cohort invented "feminism" in the late sixties and we didn't need Ms. Steinem to motivate us with marches, magazines and protests like burning our bras.  We did it in our own backyards, righting our own injustices in our own workplaces.  

In my case, I was interviewed for a job at 'Canada Mortgage and Housing' when I was pregnant.  I had to hide it with loose clothing and lo-and-behold, landed the job.  However, when they found out I was pregnant, they cancelled the competition.  

After a few months, when I was on my measly maternity leave of six-months on EI, they re-opened it and guess who won?  Yep, the guy who had come second.  I sent a letter of protest to the then Minister of Labour, who sent a weak slap on the wrist letter to the president of CMHC, Bill Teron, who did nothing.  

Yep, that's how it was.  That blip set me back a couple of years, but I got back in the saddle and kept moving up.  So, no, Gloria's antics didn't help me and I think actually weakened her cause.  Over the years, her tired schtick got annoying.  In fact, it actually sidelined her, as reason and logic prevailed in the real world.

Here is a quote from 'The Remnant' newspaper, which is very perceptive:

"In the end, Ms. Steinem’s revolution left 'all' the sexes miserable – but especially feminists who today can’t even define what a ‘woman’ is. What is she? Nobody knows. Where have all the women gone? Nobody knows. They/them can’t even dominate the women's restrooms anymore, not even in stadiums where men get to beat the estrogen out of girls on the basketball court."

_______________________

Speaking of 'Women's Lib', people are up-in-arms because Pete Hegseth criticized a female army recruit for being so overweight.  They called it "body shaming", but I call it unfit for combat.  Sorry, but if you're that overweight, you probably can't get the complete job done.

Take the average fire department.  To get in there, you have to pass a number of rigorous physical tests, involving scrambling up ladders while wearing and carrying heavy equipment, crawling around burning buildings and carrying heavy people down ladders.  If you're able to do it within the prescribed time, even while overweight, you're in; if you can't, you're not.  It's a simple as that.  Nothing to do with gender.  Nothing to do about body size or image.  It's all about being physically able to meet rigorous standards.

So, it's rich for George Clooney to rant on about how he was ashamed of Hegseth's "body shaming".  Here's a question:  George, would you refuse to marry a women just because she was fat, or would that be "body shaming"?  Have you seen his wife?  Rhetorical.  

As I said, the hypocrisy in Hollywood is breathtaking.  Nevertheless, Rest in Peace Ms. Steinem.  You certainly made your mark.   

 

Conrad Black weighs in on the CBC

This was written by Conrad, Lord Black of Cross Harbour.  It is brilliant, as usual with his musings:

Black and his gorgeous wife Barbara Amiel.

"Regrettably, an exchange on social media between two former CBC journalists, Keith Boag and Travis Dhanraj, was inflicted upon me today and it perfectly captures the invasive rot afflicting and spreading forth from the CBC's newsroom and college campuses into the collective consciousness of our society.

"For reference, Mr. Dhanraj was given the high jump from the CBC last year when he attempted to gently nudge that organization in the direction of diversity of opinion. Mr. Boag, on the other hand, was a CBC lifer, retiring after 35 years of blissful ignorance to any opinion outside the CBC's ideological monoculture. The exchange comes within the context of a recent revelation (by Warren Kinsella) that the CBC’s senior director of journalistic standards was demanding avoidance of the t-word in describing the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

"Mr. Boag seems to be defending this position by categorizing 9/11 as a run-of-the-mill "attack on civilians for political purposes,” giving several other examples to imply there is no clear distinction between any instance of civilians being killed in pursuit of some political purpose. By implication, Osama bin Laden and Nelson Mandela (an implication Boag made explicitly in a subsequent exchange with Ezra Levant) are morally equivalent; they are either both terrorists or neither are. It is not a serious position. It is moral illiteracy formatted into the CBC's perverse style guide. Sadly, the idea is not original, or unique. In fact, it is the pervasive view on campuses and among large swathes of the Canadian media landscape. It is also very dangerous, and it needs to be answered.

"Mr. Boag's position is bunk. If the “political purpose” in question is to kill and terrorize civilians in the service of global jihad or the extermination of a people, it belongs in a distinct category. That was 9/11. That was October 7. That was the Holocaust. These acts were genocidally motivated and carried out by groups that would never accept any peaceful resolution.

"On the other hand, using decisive force to destroy war criminals who will never make peace, belongs in a completely different category. It is not terrorism. Israel’s campaign to destroy Hamas is a righteous cause. Israel is not only within its rights, but morally obligated to uproot the terrorist apparatus that hides behind its own population. And Israel should be lauded for the strategically disadvantageous lengths it has gone to limit Palestinian casualties, even while Hamas has tried to maximize them. Accusing Israel of genocide is either credulous stupidity or intellectually flaccid anti-Semitism attempting to disguise itself in a threadbare cloak of righteousness.

"The atomic bomb was developed by the Allies and used to save lives and compel a surrender that would not otherwise have come. One may argue, and I would agree, that a demonstration on a remote island, a sort of nuclear warning shot, might have been preferable. Likewise, using another of Boag's examples, one could argue the ANC should have continued with their Gandhi-inspired peaceful protest movement even after the Sharpeville massacre. The fact is, no act of violence toward civilians, whether in pursuit of a greater good or not, should be whitewashed. But nor should they all be grouped lazily together, as Boag attempts to do, as if genocide and global domination were indistinguishable from self-defense or peace-through-strength. As if they can all be neatly filed away as 'political reasons'.

"After Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the United States did not proceed to conquer the world, though it could have with a four-year monopoly on nuclear weapons. It used it geostrategic leverage to rebuild Europe and Japan, establish the United Nations — which, believe it or not, was once a righteous and laudable organization — and strive for peace. Had the Nazis or Imperial Japan developed nuclear weapons first, no sane person believes they would have pursued the same strategy.

"I should not unfairly single out Mr. Boag, as his perspective is plagiarized from an intellectually and historically illiterate world view that has been building up steam for 30 years. It is a view that dispenses with the indispensable distinction between good and evil. It is not moral seriousness. It is relativism, and it is contemptible. This mass amnesia about who the forces of good in the world are, and who the forces of evil are, is a serious problem. That this worldview has captured the CBC and so many North American campuses is not surprising, but it is a genuine cause for concern. The West has ceded too much of, and must reclaim, the moral high ground."