An Ego on a Skateboard

That's an expression B coined and it applies often  -- especially in the case of our mayor, the out-of-control Naheed Nenshi.  First he announces huge tax increases to business because so much of downtown Calgary is empty. 

Businesses went wild!  So council hastily retreated and started making cuts.  If they could suddenly find money, why didn't they?  Just because.  Now His Worship is ordering elected council members to not touch his budget.  "I made it very clear that council ought not to engage in that kind of behaviour (i.e., actually having the nerve to suggest where cuts could be made).  But sometimes politicians will be politicians and sometimes they'll be looking for a little headline or a little personal gratification.  But the point is these are tough decisions.  Grandstanding doesn't help anybody," he arrogantly announced.

Are you kidding?  He is now telling councillors they can't suggest cuts -- regardless of the fact that they have been elected to help run the city.  They might as well just stay home.  The mayor, by the way, has only one vote, but is acting like Napoleon as he runs Calgary into the ground.  It's outrageous.  Nobody is a bigger -- literally -- grandstander than this mayor.  "It's important to execute the cuts and for councillors to accept what is put on the table," he had the gall to pronounce.

The guy needs to go.  But sadly, he will probably get in again because all the ethnics vote en block for the guy because he dog-whistles the race card and they all fall for it.  No one is thinking in any way, shape or form.
____________________________________________

Speaking of goings-on in Calgary, the "society" page (I put it in quotes because there really isn't any in this town) in The Herald featured an entire page about the 80th birthday of local harridan Ann McCaig.  She either owns The Herald, or pays the editor to feature her every effing Saturday because she is always in there with her mug hanging out.  I got so sick of it about a year ago, I wrote an email to the guy begging him to allow us just one week without her puss plastered all over the page. 

Didn't work.  So obviously money is behind it.  And by the way, she has never earned any that I know of.  She buried her rich husband and now swans around town spending his fortune.  The birthday party she threw for herself was for 600 people!  Six hundred!  And to think, we weren't invited!  Ha.      

Another dumb move

So, the smug ladies auxiliary of the Calgary Public Library Board have done away with late fines for children.  How dumb.  Heard an interview with the chair who said, "We want children to feel safe when they come to the library."  Whaaaaaat??!!  Safety in a library might be threatened were fines imposed?!  Frankly, if there is any place safer than a public library, I can't name it. 

Apparently, they believe kids with late fines are too scared to show up because they might be....what exactly??!  Jailed?  How does this teach kids responsibility?  It doesn't.  So, what's going to happen now is that kids will not return books at all.  I mean, why bother?  Who cares about the next kid on the waiting list for that book, no fine no return. 

This is a very dumb idea.-- especially when everything is online and kids can easily renew.  "This might be the difference between putting food on the table," said Ms. Goodie Two Shoes.  Oh, I see.  Paying a teensy fine might mean kids go without food.  OMG!  How about teaching kids to be responsible.  Well, my Gawd.  That's waaaaaay too radical.  Apparently.

What really made me nearly drive off the road was the money this idiocy will cost.  I thought maybe a few hundred or so.  No.  The amount the library will lose is.....wait for it.....sit down.....hydrate:  $400,000!!!!!

____________________________________________

The latest BS is female rock climbers who won't climb precipices named after men.  I am not kidding!  This was on the front page of The Globe and Mail today.  Really!  What have I always said?  Women are their own worst enemies.       

Somebody fell down on the job

After announcing a ban on plastics, the hysterical brouhaha over plastic straws and Climate Barbie's non-stop raving and threatening the death penalty for anyone who touches plastic, Trudeau attends a youth pizza dinner in his riding of Papineauville and tweets out a pic of him with the gang enjoying themselves with...wait for it....plastic cutlery spread all over the conference table!

I kid you not!  It wasn't someone in attendance who released the tweet, it was Trudeau himself!  OMG, how dumb can you get?!

Someone was not doing his/her job to have let this happen.  That person should be fired.  Since Trudeau is not bright enough to connect the dots from announcing a plastics ban in one place and then driving to his riding and stuffing plastic utensils in his mouth, the toadies accompanying him should have snapped to it and cleared them off the table! 

Having worked for several ministers in Trudeau Sr.'s cabinet (I was a public servant on loan to them, not a politician), one of my jobs was to make sure this sh-t didn't happen.  And I did.  But no one will get fired, trust me.  His cozy little gang in the PMO will continue to sharpen his pencils, gather his pens and paperclips and clean up his never-ending botch-ups.  The entire gang will continue to sail along, impervious to the havoc they are wreaking. 

Until the election.  Please Gawd!

Stuff and Nonsense

Rex Murphy always nails it.  Yesterday, he had a great column in The National Post about the sham of climate change and the hollowness of both Scheer's and Trudeau's "plans". 

Problem is, Canada can do nothing about climate change.  "It is a fiction and a delusion that Canada is in any way now or ever will be a significant influence for good or ill, in the dreary, endless, pup-chasing-its-tail fight against climate change," writes Murphy.  Amen to that.  He adds that even if Canada were to halt this country's entire energy output, the race to eco-apocalypse that the doom-mongers say we're on would not be slowed by a week.  The coal mines of India and China would see to that.

As I have blogged on several occasions, Canada's boreal forests clean twice the carbon the entire country emits.  We are cleaning the carbon of other countries, people!  But let's lay on a carbon tax -- or as Climate Barbie calls it, a price on pollution -- anyway and then let's give most of it back in a rebate.  What's the point of that?  I have never understood? 

"Four cabinet ministers and the prime minister for the announcement of an approval (was it the second or third?) of an extension to a pipeline, built in the 1950s, that has been sitting in regulatory remand for eight years?  And has run through 17 court cases.  And umpteen professional protest.  And the departure of the company that ran it, owned it and wanted to build the damn extension, due to sheer frustration with the mess of Canadian green obstructionism and government's prostrate, supine response to that campaign," he continues.

(Whew, pure Tex there; have to take a deep breath before continuing.)

"Why, this is The Last Spike in our time!  A nation-building moment if ever there were one.  This is better than plastic straws (the bane of my existence, as you know).  If only Stompin' Tom were still around so we could get a ballad out of this.  Let's all stand and sing the anthem."

He concludes by saying how wonderful it was that Scheer finally proved he knew where Paris was.  It's all a complete crock.  The Herald had a great cartoon yesterday outlining the "problem":

 

Take that Climate Barbie.

TO diary

"Years of practice," I replied to a middle-aged-sort-of-hippie woman as we embarked on a plane to Toronto last week.  She had just said she was wowed by how well I applied my makeup.  "Actually, I'm not wearing any," I laughed.  As if.  Yes, I always wear makeup when I fly, for some bizarre reason?  As we were waiting for the lavatory, we started chatting.  "Yesterday I dropped my 24-year-old daughter at a rehab clinic.  She had been clean for months, but just before we left a 'friend' slipped her a hit of meth.  I was enraged," she added.

This woman, it turns out, was an addictions physician, yet could not treat her own daughter.  Shades of the Cobbler's son.....For some reason, we hit it off and I spent the flight sitting, chatting and drinking wine with her instead of with B.  Heck, I can talk to him anytime, but this woman fascinated me.  Practicing on Vancouver Island, she was definitely a hippie.  Had a long ponytail and a great figure.  I will keep in touch, but it will probably go nowhere as she was on her way to Copenhagen to live with her dying grandmother until the end. 

We were visiting our son in his lovely place on Avenue Road.  Toronto, usually unbearably humid, was not and the weather was perfect.  I spent my afternoons on his charming back porch:

 



 





Went to dinner at The Keg and met a charming waiter.  As you know, I talk to everyone and chatting with this chap learned he had been a championship junior golfer.  Wow!  He had won tournaments -- you name it.  Had I not chatted him up, I would never have known.  His name was Graydon Ham. 

 

The next day we met old -- or should I say "ancient" -- friends of B's from a hundred years ago for lunch at The Royal York.  This guy had been the president of York for 10 years.  I was not impressed.  And his wife!  A graduate of Havergal and still dining out on it 60 years later.  Frankly, I would never have admitted having attended a private girls' school because every graduate I have ever known (and having grown up in Rockcliffe in Ottawa, I knew quite a few) was a loser.  And this woman was the typical private school type -- completely unaccomplished and breathtakingly boring.  Can you imagine, she still had her grey hair hanging in hanks!  Sad.  He, in a nod to reverse snobbery, pulled out his wallet, a picture of which I post here:

 

Have you ever seen anything like it?!  Dog-eared, taped and infused with elastics.  Gawd help him.

A word about Toronto's humidity:  Awful.  My hair immediately kinked and curled.  That is one thing I do not miss about TO.  I also do not miss the traffic!  The 401 is packed at all hours of the day and night!  Happily, my son inherited his superb driving skills from his father (RIP) and wove in and out of situations in which I would have sat for hours.  In fact, his father taught me how to drive a standard (have one to this day) and I am about the best at this I know.  My 2000 Civic still has the original clutch because I don't ride it.

Also taught son to make parathas.  Here he is with his first batch:

He's a coffee guy, but we are tea people.  Didn't he produce my late mother's tea pot for us.  I almost cried, thinking of her having used it. 

 

Then it was home.  Pit stop at Pearson:

 

 



 



      

Never ends

"First Nations want biggest slice of pipeline pie," says Andrew Bear Robe in 'The Herald' the other day.  Really?!  What are they going to contribute to getting a pipeline built?

Nothing.

OMG!

I am sorry to be always hitting the Indians here, but they are very vocal in the West and continually want more money.  What was that song?  "Money for nothing and your chicks for free."  Yep, that's about it.  He goes on about natives having been, "colonized by settler governments to their prejudice and reduced from being sovereign, independent and self-sufficient to being wards of the government and dependent on government subsidies."  Here's a bulletin, get off the reserves and kill the Indian Act and you will be independent and self-sufficient to the back teeth.

The big thing missing in this is that they need to get off the reserves; then they will not be "dependent".  But then there would also not be any money flowing. 

What galled me in reading this was not only the ludicrous content, but also the grammar.  Mr. Bear Robe actually has a PhD from the University of Calgary, specializing in treaties between the Crown and First Nations, yet cannot write coherently.  Anyone who uses words such as, "millenniums" needs to check a dictionary or a Latin textbook.       

See, that's what I mean.............

 

Canadian Indian call themselves first nation. The U.S. picked up on this and now, what used to be called ‘‘Black Foot Reserve’’ by Salt Lake is now called ‘’ First People’’.

Hi All:

I know some of these findings are true...…. Think about it.... who kills these women???? And then, we the rest of Canadians are accused of picking on the POOR people. Give me a damn break if you prostitute yourself drink heavily or on drugs and live a dangerous life then the likelihood of running afoul of some sick individual is very much increased. If you had a job and went to work on a daily basis I believe the possibility of becoming a number on the negative side the sheet is decreased somewhat. 

They just spent $53.9 million on this inquiry and none of the information released by the RCMP before the inquiry started was mentioned or considered. To me all it was another all-expense paid holiday for our Original Canadians and not a word about who was charged and who were responsible for the deaths, just 'sob stories' of how much they missed Sarah or Jane. Most of them giving evidence were not even related to the deceased, just a reason to get to town and more free meals and paid accommodation. 

The word genocide should never be used other than to give the report some attention before it gets shelved and gathers dust. Looking in the dictionary the meaning of the word genocide is: the deliberate killing of a large group of people, especially those of a particular ethnic group or nation. "a campaign of genocide". Racial killing · massacre · wholesale slaughter · mass slaughter · wholesale killing

·         indiscriminate killing · mass murder · mass homicide · mass destruction · annihilation

·         extermination · elimination · liquidation · eradication · decimation · butchery · bloodbath

·         bloodletting · pogrom · ethnic cleansing · holocaust · Shoah · slaying · battue · hecatomb.    

None of the events listed under the meaning of genocide applies to the random deaths of the

Missing or Murdered Aboriginal Women.  We have 1,165,145 Treaty Indians (This represents

about 3.5 percent of the entire population of Canada).  In 2016, 587,545 people in Canada

self-identified as Metis.  They represented 35.1% of the total Aboriginal population.  While

investigating the treaties that were signed only Treaty 6 had anything to do with providing

health care.  Why are we providing health care for the million or more Indigenous people as

well as the other benefits on the taxpayers dollar?????

Total Number of Participants in the Truth Gathering Process - 2386 and only 1484 Family Members and Survivors provided testimony --- 819 individuals shared through Artistic Expressions (which is a new process supposedly to gather information)  - - 83 Experts, Knowledge-Keepers and Officials in the communities - - 9 Knowledgeable Experts and Institutional Hearings and 15 Community Hearings provided Testimony.  No Community or Reserve Policemen were allowed to give evidence or give information or factual details.  904 people that were not personally involved and could only related details after the event were allowed to give evidence.

Again, I say, Give me a BREAK!!!!!

Regards,

Frank

Calgary Sun article tells some staggering truths and historical facts  

... AND NOW GREY AND BRUCE COUNTIES ARE BEING SUED FOR $80B AND THEY WANT UNDERWATER LAND RIGHTS TO PART OF LAKE HURON. 
 
This was sent to me and sure many of us are confused with the treaties that are out there and how they are used or misused.

This was published to provide information about those who stand against pipelines.

If you were wondering why aboriginals always want an inquiry into anything and everything they can dream up, just think of free hotel stays, free food and incidentals, not to mention the bar fridge that gets stocked up every day in their rooms.

This Calgary Sun article tells some staggering truths and historical facts.

I hope you are open-minded enough to make an objective read.

I will add one interesting fact - since 1946 the Canadian Government has spent 

$3,300,000,000,000.00 - that is 3.3 TRILLION on Indian Affairs with NO RETURN on the investment.

This should be reading material for ALL Canadians.  This article is absolutely correct.  Some very interesting statistics for each individual to consider but anyone with a background knows this to be true already!  The fact is that the bleeding hearts and vote mongering Politicians don't want the general public to know this, so let's spread it around!! 

Judging from an article in The Calgary Sun entitled "Enough is Enough", a National Inquiry into missing and murdered aboriginal women is NOT what needs to be done and Harper was right in not pursuing this time wasting expensive suggestion supported by both the NDP and Liberals.  Chief Ronald Morin of the Enoch band west of Edmonton is paid $750,000.00 per year by the federal government (YOU).

He spends winters at his winter home in Las Vegas, 4 car garage & swimming pool.

Not all the people in his band live like kings. Still every Chief of an Indian Band in Canada makes more than our Prime Minister.   Harper brought in the "Accountability Act" so that these Chiefs would have to tell their band members and the rest of us where

the money was being spent.  It is the taxpayers' money and we have the right to know where all this money is going.  One of Trudeau's first acts as Prime Minister was to throw out the "Accountability Act".  If you were paying attention at all and did your research you would understand this tragedy, the real issues and what needs to be done to address them.

Some statistics:

·         According to the RCMP: Out of 6,420 missing persons in Canada 1,455 are women, of those 164 are aboriginal.

            88% of murders of aboriginal women have been solved by police

·         89% of murders of non-aboriginal women have been solved by police

·         Between 1980 and 2012 there were 20,313 murders in Canada.

·         6,551 of those victims were women and 1,017 of those were aboriginal women.

Here's where it gets even more interesting:

·         Almost 30% of the 1,017 aboriginal women were murdered by their husbands.

·         23% were murdered by another family member.

·         30% were murdered by an acquaintance.

·         So, only about 8% of aboriginal women were murdered by strangers.

More statistics:

·         44% of the family members and acquaintances who kill aboriginal women were drunk.

·         74% of the murderers of aboriginal women are unemployed.

AND NOW THE MOST SHOCKING:

·         71% of the murderers of aboriginal women already had a criminal record.

·         53% had been convicted before of a violent crime;

·         62% had a history of violence with the specific murder victim herself.

To be clear, there are some Chiefs and aboriginal communities in this country that are doing well,

for various reasons, but much of it has to do with their leadership.

Chief Clarence Louie of the Osoyoos Indian Band is an excellent example of quality leadership,

but no one (especially the media & government) ever talk about him and his people.

Here are the REAL issues:

1.   Welfare.   The billions of taxpayer dollars that go to support aboriginal people, not only in living expenses but free education, free medical, no taxation, etc. has crippled them (as it has crippled many non-aboriginal Canadians for generations).  I would venture to say many of them have not worked a day in their lives. 

2.   Corrupt leadership who have no idea how to lead, manage, inspire or teach their people .... who take for themselves and their families and friends and are not accountable to anyone (as evidenced most strongly by Chief Theresa Spence in Attawapiskat.) and blame, blame, blame the Canadian Government.

3.  Alcohol and drug abuse, gang violence .... all contributing factors in the crime rate on reserves, lack of parenting, family violence and poverty.

4.  A two-tiered justice system that gives aboriginal offenders lighter sentences, or no sentences at all, allowing them back into their communities to continue to abuse the same aboriginal women again and again .... often resulting in death (as evidenced by the 83% who were murdered by their husbands, a family member or an acquaintance).  If you want a National Inquiry .... it should be on this issue..

When you say "It is inconceivable that we, as a country, allowed this situation to continue"  .... and "We urgently need to acknowledge the systemic aspect of this crisis instead of ignoring or dismissing it.  " What are your intended solutions?"

A National Inquiry is not going to fix these problems!

Giving the aboriginals more of hard earned Canadian taxpayer dollars is NOT going to fix this problem! 

WHAT ARE YOUR REAL SOLUTIONS TO THE REAL ISSUES?

Let's get this straight.

This land does not belong to them and they never were a 'Nation'.

These people's ancestors did not just appear in North America, magically out of thin air one day 40 or 50,000 years ago.  They came in waves across the land/ice bridge from Asia.  What's more, these waves, in many cases, were not related groups of people.  They came from various places around North Eastern Asia and were from different genetic strains.  In other words, the "natives of North America" are not a homogenous group of people and more importantly...they are immigrants too.  Like millions of immigrants today.

The idea that the "natives" were peaceful caretakers of the land or benevolent tenants couldn't be further from the truth. The various tribes right across Canada warred on each other constantly.
They were violent.  Want proof?  Ask the Hurons ... oh, that's right you can't. The Iroquois' wiped them out.

How about slavery that was rife among all the first nation tribes until the Europeans came and freed the slaves and put an end to this "valued cultural tradition".  Is slavery peaceful and humane?

The idea that we "stole" this land from them is also ridiculous.  A more technologically advanced and numerous culture invaded and conquered.

This is exactly what has been happening since the dawn of humanity all around the globe.  To say we "stole" their lands is just plain wrong.  That is akin to saying the Saxons should return England to the Angles. Or maybe we should launch a campaign to have the Roman descendants give Italy back to the Etruscans.  It is a nonsensical notion driven by the politically correct bleeding hearts, some intellectually deficient politicians and pressure on the Government from lobbying groups.  Also by the Indian people.  It will continue to cost this country needless and wasted trillions until we get some backbone and turn off the taps.

Are these people in trouble?   Yes.

Do they need help?   Yes.

Are they responsible enough to look after themselves and efficiently spend the billions that tax payers give them? CERTAINLY NOT!

The only way to fix this situation is to bring them into society as equals.  Getting jobs and paying taxes like the rest of us because in reality, they are no more special than any of the other numerous cultures that now call Canada home. 

Tennis types

Must be the influence of the French Open, but yesterday the Calgary Tennis Club was filled with people warming up and flexing.  As I sipped wine, I had to laugh.  Tennis players, in my experience, all think they are waaaaaay better than they really are.  If they had the chance, they could probably beat Roger or Martina.  In their minds. 

 

Personally, it is very amusing to me.  By the way, neither of these two actually got on the court.  Ha!



Flukes

I've just realized that everything that actually works is a fluke.  Things you think should and will work, don't and when something works, it's actually a fluke.

Life in its entirety is actually a series of flukes.  "Life is made up of small victories and mediocre defeats," said B a while ago.  That's absolutely true.  He also said, "If you could only separate the crap from the crap."  Another gem because basically, it's all crap in one form or another.  A while ago I blogged about his late mother's maxim:  Everything can be explained by money or stupido.  Exactly.

If you think of what's working in your life, or not, it's either by fluke, money or stupido. 

Never fails.

p.s.  A negative shout out to my Houston step-daughter, who hasn't called her father for 11 months.  B did call there other day to speak to his grandkids and she deigned to allow it.  How generous of her!  His daughter is the most self-centred, disrespectful person I know.  After all we have done for her, she cuts him off.  Must be my fault.  Everything apparently is.  She better not dare show up for his funeral, is all I can say.  Oh, but that will be perfect because it will give her more money to smoke and drink red wine.

p.p.s.  She just emailed B and said I was lying about her.  I was not.  I am a truth-teller.  Maybe she doesn't know what the word "deign" means.  He did call and spoke to his grands, but she never calls here and hasn't for 11 months.  I stand by my comment about her being disrespectful because that's what it amounts to.  If you don't try to contact your father for that long, you are not respecting him.

At one point, he was reduced to making appointments to call his grands.  After waiting all day for the time, he would call only to be told they were out or busy and he didn't get to talk to them.  He was always very disappointed.  If that's not disrespect, I don't know what is.      

I like him

It's fashionable to hate Donald Trump, but I actually like him.  He is a no BS person, something I admire.  He tells it like it is, refreshing in a politician.

Security for his visit to the UK has cost $70 million, so obviously the trade agreements that will result mean much more, or it would not be happening.  I also think Melania is gorgeous.

 

Shoes

Apparently, shoe king Christian Louboutin got his red-sole idea from a bottle of nail polish.  Experimenting in a factory one day, Louboutin spied an assistant's bottle of red nail polish and decided to blot out the usual black sole with a bright colour.  So he painted the sole with nail polish and presto!  He became a rich designer because he patented the red sole.  So, when you wear red-soled shoes everyone knows they're Louboutin's and knows how much you paid for them.

Brilliant.

As you know, I love shoes and I love my high heels.  "The woman carries the clothes, but the shoes?  They carry the woman," said Louboutin.  Could not agree more.  Shoes change an entire outfit.  A pair of jeans with sneakers is a completely different look than a pair with high-heeled sandals or heels.  The former is the gym; the latter evening wear. 

It's all in the shoes.

"The shoe is a pedestal.  But these little things on your feet are also making you a different person in a lot of ways," he says.  "It's affecting the entire silhouette and the way you're going to walk and move."  People obsess over their shoes.  I'm one of them.

The real Louboutin deal

 

They've hit new heights of ridiculous

"Genocide"?  Really?!  The 'Concise Oxford Dictionary' defines it as, "the extermination of a race.'  So, apparently that is what "we" are doing to Indigenous women and girls:  Trying to kill them all.  But since the commission only focussed on women, what about native men?  If "we" are trying to kill all natives, we would have to include males too.

They get away with calling it "genocide" because they can.  Fifty millions of dollars later and that's what they have concluded.  How incompetent can one be?  Marion Bullard, commission head, should hang her head in shame.  What is conveniently left out of the 231 recommendations in the report are the RCMP stats, which show that the majority of these women are killed by their own people -- not others.  And by the way, the stats are about the same for non-native women.  Oh, but let's forget about that inconvenient truth. 

As an ex-journalist, I do not understand why today's scribes do not write about this?  If you're going to write a story, include all the facts -- not just what Ms. Bullard wants you to publish.  Seriously.  Once again, the problem is the reserve system, from which these women want to escape because they are so remote and there's nothing to do.  They drift to the cities, fall in with other natives and low-life and are killed, thanks to their dangerous lifestyle.  The unfortunate Tina Fontaine is a case in point.  She was out in the public thoroughfare in the middle of the night, exposing herself to street danger and was killed.  Heck, my mother and father would never have allowed me to run in the streets like that because I might have been, guess what, killed!  And to top it all off, Ms. Fontaine's parents were living in the same city while it all happened to their daughter.  Way to go Mum and Dad!