Reading an obituary in 'The Globe and Mail', I learned about John Richards, founder in 2001 of the 'Apostrophe Protection Society'. Googling it, I was transfixed. It features hundreds of examples of misplaced and misused apostrophes. I have sent an email asking to join, as I am sure it will fascinate me.
Google it for a few laughs.
Heard a great description of many people I know: "Often wrong, never in doubt." I know lots of people like that. My father told me that when I was about four, I stood with him while he talked to someone he knew. After the gentleman left, apparently I turned to Daddy and said, "That man is so dumb he doesn't know he's dumb."
Don't we all know people like that? Of course we do. Trudeau and Freeland are prime examples. Now they are trying to stonewall their way out of this National Defence sexual mess. Six years ago -- six years! -- another justice conducted another investigation into sexual harassment in the military and concluded that, guess what, it existed. Duh! She made a ton of recommendations, including forming a truly independent body to look into them. What happened? Nothing.
With every Liberal a frothing "feminist", you'd think Katie Telford, et al., would have jumped right out of her chair when she learned about allegations about Vance and rushed to get to the bottom (sorry for the pun) of the mess. But no, this "feminist" just shrugged them off, closed the file and gave the guy a raise. As Candace Bergen pointed out yesterday in her scathing attack on feminist-in-chief Trudeau, the latter could hardly do anything about it because he was under his own groping cloud debacle at the time -- something he has yet to actually deny.
And to think Sajjan claims he had no authority to act is beyond ludicrous! The guy's the defence minister! What an unholy mess. Speaking of messes, here's another beyond-belief moment:
Our Enmax bill arrived yesterday for $216.05 to cover energy and utilities. For those two items, the bill was $122.09. So what was the rest for?
- 30 -
Now we learn that a certain general had been having an affair for 20 years with a certain female major and had even fathered two of her children! Hitherto, I was under the impression that he had been engaged to this woman and that the affair had been consenual (See "Here's what I don't get," March 24/21).
It now turns out he had been married all along. It also turns out he denied the children, paid no support, but kept up with the affair under the nose of his lawyer wife. (There's a "hahahaha" touch for you; she'll certainly have lots of fun taking him to the legal cleaners.) We also discover from her testimony, that the major said he told her to lie and that he had the minister under control, so no worries there, wink-wink-nudge-nudge.
What do they say? Hell hat no fury like a woman scorned and this woman is vomiting her fury all over the parliamentary table, where she has been so eloquently testifying. However, the fact that she has eight children and is a single mother did round out the picture for me. In my mind, this was an insecure woman, who had a bunch of children with a bunch of men, who the general considered some kind of inconsequential tramp he could call up whenever he had a few minutes for a quickie just to relieve the tension of all that senior military intrigue and work. I mean, you know how stressful that kind of toil is.
Of course, he retired just before she popped up, thus ensuring he secured his HUGE pension. Good thing because he'll need it to hand over the lawyers he will have to pay to fight his wife. What did I just say? Hell hath no fury like.......You get the picture.
When I was young and working with MPs on the Hill, I've lost count of the numbers who would regularly hit on me. In fact, I worked for one right up until I gave birth, but the minute I was back from maternity leave, he pounced. You'd think he would have practiced a little restraint, knowing I was a new mother and all that. But no, any young, attractive female in the office was fair game and it was always open season. Let me tell you it was a delicate balancing act keeping your job, yet not pissing the boss off to the point where he fired you for not putting out. The fact that I was a good speech writer was the only thing that saved me from the trash heap. My words made even the dumbest of them sound intelligent.
So, that's my take on the whole sordid mess. As they say, there's nothing new under the sun and 'twas ever thus.
Well, since the Chauvin verdict was guilty on all counts, everyone hoping him to be found innocent will be hugely disappointed. Sadly, there will be no rioting and store-front smashing to get at all those TVs and other expensive merchandise which are obviously the remedy for every perceived slight and verdict.
Frankly, I think this is the reason Chauvin was convicted. Minneapolis didn't want a riot, so it was up to the jurors to make sure that didn't happen.
Guilty was the only way out.
If you read the many charges against Chauvin, along with the fact that only one juror would have had to have dissented on just one of them, there is no way he should have been found guilty. Sadly, even though George Floyd died, this was a political and expeditious verdict, not a legal one. This in no way condones or excuses Chauvin's use of force. It just highlights the fact that no other verdict was possible, in spite of the legal details that must not have been followed to reach it.
And the rejoicing and joy observers demonstrated when the verdict was announced were unconscionable, yet predictable.
Ah, the mess that is race in the Excited States of America, not to mention no free colour TVs.
Now Trudeau will be apologizing to Italian-Canadians for how they were treated during the war. WTF??!!! He needs to brush up on his history. Italy sided with the Germans and many Canadians and allied troops were killed there -- including B's uncle at the age of 24.
My uncle was stationed in Italy and he was under fire too. First it was the Japanese, then the natives -- multiple times -- and now it's Italians.
He has to be stopped.
Just watched a BBC program on Africa and masks were nowhere in sight. If someone were wearing a mask, it was pulled down to their necks. This will have tragic consequences.
With apologies to all my fanatical duffer friends, I was reminded again why I believe golf is essentially unplayable. In addition to -- or perhaps because of -- my contention that the ball is too small and the club too long, rendering it basically unhittable, there are other mysteries to the game.
Reading the brilliant Cathal Kelly's take on the Masters, I came across this:
I mean, poor Connors. When top golfers do nothing except play for big money all the time and still flub it, what hope does anyone have?! Saw a great cartoon today with pictures of devices used by diviners to find water. The last one was a shot of a golf club and a ball. But maybe it's all about the 19th hole? That would make sense.
When we lived in Ottawa, we were social members of the Royal Ottawa, which meant B could play the back nine twice a week while I sat on the beautiful patio anytime I wanted, drank wine in normal clothes and cute sandals and golfer-watched. That hugely less-expensive deal than a regular membership made perfect sense. I was not a "golf widow" and B got to hit a few balls twice a week. I rest my case.
With apologies for the bizarre line breaks, this is Rex Murphy's eloquent take on the current "government":
"Judging by their performance on the most important files, the current bunch in Ottawa would need to hire a consultant to figure out how to get wet in a thunderstorm, and set up a task force to study how to tie their own shoes.
"Look around you. Canada is in the biggest, most persistent and
threatening crisis since — well since ever. The long-term care homes
are under a blizzard of mortality. There is heartbreak in every small
business in the country. The worry and anxiety level of most everyday
citizens — especially those not shielded by uninterrupted cheques from
provincial and federal governments, and those not serving as a member
of a legislature — is at an all-time high.
"This rich, sophisticated, technologically advanced and altruistic
country of ours is the only G7 nation raiding vaccine supplies
intended for “developing countries.” As some droll Twitter feed
offered, it’s as if the many-mansioned denizens of Toronto’s Forest
Hill were making raids on the food banks, and soaking up all the
Canadian Tire money.
"This government hoards any real details about what vaccines are
here,
how many are “secured” on paper only, and what they have promised to
pay for them, as a miser hoards gold. Every press briefing on this
most important of concerns is a dance of evasion, platitude, confused
projection and sometimes just pure ignorance of what is actually the
case.
"They are the most deliberately obfuscatory, opaque,
access-of-information-allergic administration under the democratic
sun.
"One year into COVID our venerated House of Commons is a
disembowelled,
non-functioning, neglected wreck. The targeted disrespect of the
absolute and central symbol and instrument of our democracy has no
parallel. No “minority” government has ever operated with the smug
insouciance and patented, virtue-perfumed arrogance towards the
Commons as the Trudeau government. This is, when we step back, their
biggest sin.
"Since 1867 no prime minister has abandoned the House of Commons
and
downgraded its significance for so long a period and for such
obviously self-centred and political opportunistic reasons. It is so
much easier, so much safer, so much more convenient — to walk from the
bedroom to the one-printer office and mail in platitudes and arias of
evasion via Zoom.
"What other government has parted ways with a governor general, and
to
top it off, a governor general brought in by the world’s No. 1 “male
feminist” as a role model for young women and girls? The same
male-feminist who conveniently loses all his top-performing female
ministers. Someone should do a “gender analytics” study on Justin
Trudeau’s cabinet.
"Not to worry. It has lost a finance minister over ethics charges
during the mightiest spending binge since the Big Bang. An attorney
general, the prime guardian of our rule of law, was hounded out
because she would not bend the rule of law. The most qualified and
respected woman, a doctor of medicine no less (in other words a real
doctor) could not abide staying in so carelessly unethical a cabinet.
Thus, at the very time Canada would have wished the most competent
person to deal with a once-in-a-hundred years medical emergency, Dr.
Jane Philpott is not even in the government.
"takes up and puts down portfolios with the “greatest of ease,” leaving
no impression behind as he goes — burbles on, during a pandemic, about
planting two billion trees. Imagine, two billion. We only have about
300 billion already! Priorities I guess. Repeat after me the holy
incantation: climate change, climate change, climate change. It’s
better than a vaccine.
"We have two hostages in the tyrannical torture houses of Chinese
prisons. Those poor, suffering and tormented men must truly have been
uplifted — if any news ever reaches them — to learn that their
government, during a world pandemic, was collaborating with the
Chinese government to “jointly develop a COVID-19 vaccine.” Remember
the line from Casablanca — “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in
all the world ...” — and Insert “countries” for gin joints. Of all the
countries in all the world why did the Trudeau government pick ....
China? Incompetence can’t cover it. We need some term that speaks of
dedicated and determined, merciless and staggering wrong-headedness:
the purblind leading the purblind.
"We have had no budget in two years. We have spent more than any
other
government, by far, in our history. We have no idea where all the
money has gone. The auditor general has been denied the resources to
even keep track of a portion of it. There is no coherence, or trust,
between the majority of the premiers and the prime minister. We have
been offered occasional delights, like the celebrated comic opera of
the WE brothers and the (temporary) $43-million gift to them to
administer half a billion dollars of your money.
"The Liberals have given far more time and dedicated energy to the
Derek Sloan affair (whatever that was) than the cancellation of the
Keystone XL pipeline, and the emergent threat of Alberta leaving the
Confederation. (Query for serious panel discussion: Is Canada safe
from Bidenism?) Alberta groans while the Trudeau government spends
over $36 million for “stay-at-home chairs” for its civil service.
"The country is in an economic coma. The House of Commons is a
movie
set. We are shamed in the international community. Contracts on COVID
are all Top Secret. There is zero reliability on any projection made
by a minister or the prime minister on where we are on vaccines and
distribution. Rideau Hall is shortly to be listed on Airbnb. Farmers
have been hit by fuel and carbon taxes. Newfoundland teeters on
bankruptcy. The West has never felt so far out of things. I could go
on.
"Is this what was meant when the rosy words were first pronounced:
Canada’s back?
"To calm yourself, however, there is always this: Climate change.
"Climate change. Climate change. Two billion trees. Two billion
trees.
Home chairs. Home chairs. Derek Sloan."
Well, we're all locked up again to prevent the spread. What a great idea. Wait, scratch that. You know the saying, "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result." That's what's happening everywhere except in the Maritime bubble.
How well have repeated closures worked so far? That was a rhetorical question. They haven't. The problem is people are not adhering to safety, distance and mask protocols. But wait, scratch that too because in remote, northern communities, where natives neither social distance, nor wear masks because they don't trust the White Man's medicine, natives are being rushed the vaccine regardless of age or other morbidities.
Maybe we should all do that. Ignore the rules and get the vaccine out-of-turn. As I have said, this is a bizarre and futile strategy if you're courting votes because natives don't vote. And what has anyone done for seniors trapped, isolated and perishing in long-term care homes for the 13 months? Nothing much.
It's all so criminal.
And here's a weird stat: 45% of Albertans think Deena Hinshaw is doing a great job on vaccines, yet only 23% think Kenney is doing well. Wait, isn't Hinshaw the one calling the COVID shots for Kenney? How does that make any sense?!
And here's another scoop: No one has died of regular flu or pneumonia this year. No one. And it seems Prince Philip was the only person to have died of old age in the past year. Wow!
Here's another comment on where we're at these days: Some years ago, a white member of the Washington DC Council explained that in contracting for community infrastructure construction, the Council should not be too ‘niggardly’ in budgeting. Well, the African Americans on Council (a majority) were enraged. The white councillor pointed out the dictionary meaning of the word, but this fact didn’t calm the enraged. In fact, they challenged the dictionary meaning, claiming there was a language racial plot of long standing in the white man’s world and the dictionary was the vehicle. Go figure!
I give up.
A Fairy Tale about Canada
Once upon a time in a northern Dominion called Canada, there was a thriving oil industry that provided fuel for vehicles, trains and airplanes.
There was also a large natural gas
industry that kept the people warm during the long cold winters and supplied
the raw material for plants that manufactured plastics, detergents, fertilizer,
synthetic clothing and a great many other items needed and used by people every
day.
That oil and natural gas industry
employed more than a million people and its exports were the biggest
contributor to the county's international balance of payments.
People working in the industry were
proud that their operations were among the most technically advanced and
environmentally responsible in the world.
Then a report written by a scientific
advisory group called the International Panel on Climate Change was published,
stating that the earth was warming and carbon-dioxide emissions from burning
'fossil fuels' were the likely cause.
And so it came to be that lowering
emissions of the very substance that plants need to breath in the same way as
animals need oxygen, and that provides the fizz in soda drinks and the bubbles
in champagne, became the world's most important environmental priority.
Suddenly, after fueling the world's
progress for centuries, oil, natural gas and coal became environmental pariahs.
Eco-elves flew in from far and wide to proclaim Canada's oil and gas
industry a major contributor to global warming.
But in the real world, the industry
contributed just a small part of Canada's emissions, and Canada's emissions
were only two per cent of global emissions.
Nations of the world gathered together
in the magical Kingdom of Japan and promised they would reduce the use of
fossil fuels. But a decade
later, fossil-fuel emissions had gone up, not down.
So, world leaders gathered in the French
Fifth Republic to once again pledge reduction of fossil fuels. But even as
world leaders announced this pledge, three dozen countries, including two with
more than a third of the people in the world, continued to build hundreds of
new coal-fired power plants. Coal was already the biggest source of carbon
dioxide and those new plants would raise coal emissions by another 40 per cent.
That meant that, even if Canada were to
disappear into stardust, its tiny share of global emissions would be replaced
in a matter of months.
Amazingly, these realities mattered not
to Canada's starry-eyed prime minister, who vowed that his little northern
country would set an example to the world. His paladins imposed special taxes
on the users of fossil fuel, creating hardship for the people while also
weakening the dominion's competitive position with its largest trading partner.
The prime minister journeyed to the main
oil and gas producing province, hoping to use his imagined charisma to convince
workers worried about losing their jobs that 'phasing-out' their industry was
necessary to stop global warming.
People asked the prime minister what was
to replace all that fossil fuel energy? He proclaimed that it would be
'green energy' generated by the wind and the sun. - But the people knew that
the wind only blew some of the time. And that, in this northern land with
little sunlight during short winter days and none on long cold nights when
energy is needed most, solar was useless.
And the government had not learned from
experience in a province called Ontario, where billions of dollars spent on
green energy had yielded only small amounts of very expensive and unreliable
power that needed back-up fossil-fuel power plants to prevent black-outs.
The folly of relying on green energy was
undeniable, but, alas, neither the eco-elves nor the prime minister took
heed. Neither did they face the truth that trying to force down Canada's
already tiny global emissions would hamstring the country's most important
industry only to have its fossil-fuel production, and emissions, replaced by
production from other countries.
The prime minister and his paladins
remained convinced their green dream would come true, if only they believed.
So, this fairy tale of doing good for the world became a nightmare for this small
northern dominion. Sadly, the rest of the world didn't even care.
****The End***** (coming
soon)
Gwyn Morgan is the retired founding CEO
of Encana
