Hats and headdresses

When I was in London, meeting Her Late Majesty, I bought a big hat for the occasion.  As I approached the Air Canada desk at Heathrow to check in when we were leaving, I was told in no uncertain terms I could not bring my large hat box as carry on; it had to be checked.

Isn't my 'Queen Hat' in the same category as Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak's headdress?  Obviously not because the airwaves have been full of outrage that Nepinak was initially told she had to check it.  Nothing doing, said Nepinak.  The fuss she kicked up forced the airline let her keep it during the flight.

OK, I get that it's considered sacred, but rules are rules.  Except when they're not.  When I told the Air Canada agent my hat had met the Queen, they all went crazy and insisted I model it right then and there, which I did -- to the annoyance of everyone in line behind me.

My famous "Queen Hat"

Finally, she allowed me to bring the hat on board.  "I'll just stow that with the captain's things," she whispered.  But I hadn't made a fuss.  I was just wondering how I would deal with the hat in cargo.  Over the years, I've found that if you make a fuss, they dig in.  Unless you're Indigenous, I guess.

Cindy and her headdress

____________________________

More on the Indigenous file, there are now demands for more money to repatriate artifacts that had found their way to art galleries and museums around the world.  Do you think housing them on local reserves is a better way to preserve and protect them than in a museum?  Me neither.  In any case, they're being ripped out of display cases and brought to Canada.  

More more money

  

Even they're fed up

I asked my Filipino cleaner if she would be voting Liberal next election.  As you know, almost all immigrants and permanent residents tend to vote Liberal.  "Absolutely not," she replied.  "They are ruining everything!"

So, there you have it.  If she isn't voting Liberal, presumably many others like her aren't.  Please G-D!!!!!  Deliver us from this evil!

She came legally and waited the prerequisite number of years before arriving.  But we now see that hundreds of thousands are jumping the queue via the foreign student scam.  Asylum claims from this bunch have jumped more than 1,500 per cent in the past five years.  1,500 per cent!!  That's a scandal encouraged by the Liberals who have allowed this since they came to power 12 years ago.

The study-permit system is being exploited as a way to enter and remain here because it's much easier to obtain than even a visitor's visa.  And it's working very well, thank you.  In 2018, there were 1,515 claims; by 2023 that number had soared to 25,465!  And, of course, they get to stay here while their claims are being adjudicated.   

Basically, we're f-cked.  Are these "students" actually studying at a college or university?  Of course not.  They enroll and bugger off, encouraged by immigration consultants who tell them it's an easy way to get into Canada.  "A lot of immigration lawyers are telling them to file refugee claims to stay in the country," said Toronto lawyer Vaibhav Roy.  

In the meantime, many are living in homeless shelters, or on the street while they wait because guess what?  There's no housing!

A perfect example of someone who should be deported is Zain Haq, a Pakistani national who first came to Canada on a study permit in 2019.  

What has he been up to since?  Staging illegal blockades.  So far, Haq has been arrested at least 10 times and convicted of several crimes.  After a year-long effort by CBSA to get him deported, he was almost out the door until an 11th-hour intervention -- by Liberal (of course) MP Joyce Murray -- stopped it.  

This criminal has been at the centre of two of B.C.'s most extreme environmental groups:  Extinction Rebellion and Save Old Growth, of which he is a co-founder.  Just a few months after arriving, Haq played a central role in extended bridge and intersection closures, plus a two-hour blockade of Vancouver International Airport.  Just to go one better, he organized a closure that blocked emergency vehicles trying to access St. Paul's Hospital which cost lives!  The Crown wanted a prison sentence, but he was merely given house arrest.

The illegal messes Haq creates.

How is this bum allowed to stay?!  How did Joyce Murray think it was OK to interfere with due process and overrule the legal decision ordering him out!?!  This is outrageous.  "Every single day we will be disrupting the highways in multiple locations -- both on the island and in Vancouver," he defiantly said, giving the finger to authorities.

And who's funding this assh-le and his crimes?  The California-based 'Climate Emergency Fund'.  Whaddya wanna bet Stephen Guilbeault donates to it?  Rhetorical.

This has got to stop!

 

Yep

The sky's the limit!

Spring madness is in the air out here.  The big news is that after more than two years and $4.8 million, The Calgary brain trust has come up with a new moniker for Cowtown:  Blue Sky City!  Yep, that's right, the brilliant minds at city hall recently announced that 'Be Part of the Energy' was out and 'Blue Sky' was in!

At the same time as announcing an 8% property tax increase wallop, the learned burghers at city hall managed to find an extra $2 million for this nonsense.  Scrounging around further in the municipal coffers they also managed to discover they had a $200 million surplus!  Wow!  Great financial planning, guys!  Way to go!

The Blue Skyers are hoping to attract even more souls to Calgary than are already invading every month.  Never mind that there is no housing for them, the Blue Skyers haven't bothered with that annoyance.  No, they are plowing along painting the town blue and reaching for the sky!

The papers are full of clap-yourself-on-the-back photos of smug officials grinning for the cameras, while the homeless wallow in despair on every corner and the potholes get bigger and bigger.

They've also gone ahead with blanket re-zoning for every neighbourhood so that multi-unit dwellings can be built everywhere.  You can imagine how well that's going down with NIMBY-ism in local neighbourhoods.  Not well.

However, Michael Mauws, professor of business policy and strategy at Athabasca University, has proposed what I think is a brilliant solution:  Charge people more for the privilege of low density.  Frankly, that makes perfect sense to me, but it'll mean a change to how the mill rate is calculated.  Low density areas require many more metres of roads, sidewalks, sewer and later lines and whatever else is buried under Calgary's streets, writes Prof. Mauws.

This sensible solution wasn't even considered by council.  It's just blanket re-zoning.  Period the end.  Just watch the fireworks at council meetings now, as irate NIMBY-ers flock in droves to freak out.  Sit back and enjoy it all, folks.

________________________________

There was another provocative piece in today's 'Herald', lamenting the madness of owning an electric vehicle.  Why?  Because there is no infrastructure to support charging.  "Simply legislating that all vehicles sold by 2035 must be electric doesn't guarantee there will be options as affordable as the gas vehicles currently on the market," writes freelance columnist Katherine Brodsky:

Craziness.

She should know.  She dutifully bought one in a valiant attempt to go green and do her bit.  But she discovered the condo she lives in won't allow her to charge it because the rest of the owners don't want to cover her electricity costs.  Well, why should they?

"There's something deeply elitist in the government policies that surround EVs," she says.  "Forcing EVs on people without encouraging or building sufficient infrastructure in advance is bound to lead to trouble ahead."  Ms. Brodsky has now figured that out, but she is stuck with a vehicle she can't sell and can't drive!

Another green turbine bites the dust.

Are you listening Stephen Guilbeault?

Unforgettable

Last weekend will forever be unforgettable for me.  Granddaughter and I spent it at the gorgeous 'Fairmont Palliser Hotel' in downtown Calgary and it was just the two of us to celebrate her 10th birthday.

Everywhere we went, I told the servers it was her birthday, which resulted in a special dessert with a sparkler on the top.  In other words, she was suitably spoiled.  

Dinner

One of several cakes

A little healthy food

Aerobic moves

Beautiful

Bedtime

This is was a special grandmother/granddaughter weekend she may forget, but I never will.    

Dear Diary

Well, B arrived back from Houston last evening and the laundry is already overflowing.  Away for three weeks visiting his daughter, son-in-law and grands, he returned with a workload I had not missed in the least.

I used to go too, but as you and I both know, Diary, his daughter and I are estranged, which means my step-grandchildren no longer know me.  That's a shame, my friend, because I am worth knowing.  We are estranged because she had the colossal nerve to bring her mother to our sacred, family cottage -- the cottage we shared as a blended family of six for 25 years.  (See "How could you," July 29, 2018)

I was understandably enraged.  That's when we fell out.

This is how I am now portrayed -- the wicked stepmother.

Of course, it's all about money.  The mother has lots, we don't.  That's the draw she commands.  Ironically enough, much of her money we had to give her in the divorce and custody settlement, even though she is the millionaire.  How we kept paying support when we had the kids the majority of the time, I will never understand?  "That's the judicial attitude," our lawyer said when I asked why she didn't pay us child support.

I raised this daughter.  Remember, Diary, how I went to battle with the Ottawa School Board to make sure she got her bilingual high school diploma?  They were saying she was a credit short, so I dug around and found a summer school credit, which they gave her, which ensured she got her diploma.  And that diploma?  That diploma got her the job at Disney in Florida the Hyatt Hotel in Calgary, where she met her husband.  The rest, as they say, is history.

None of that would have happened, had I not intervened.  You know, Diary, my anger is also rooted in hurt -- that and a touch of self-pity, I admit.  But that didn't stop me from insisting B visit his grands in Houston, a visit I also paid for.  And speaking of money, do you think it's right for B to give her hundreds of dollars for his keep while he is there?

I don't either.

The fact is, he will never see his grands again because a solo trip to Houston at his age is now out-of-the-question.  And daughter's maternal inheritance rules out any chance she will visit here.  That's pretty sad, but in a way, I don't blame her.  She has been either overtly or covertly warned that any alliance to B means a change to the will.  Happens all the time.  Wonder if she'll come to his funeral?  Probably only to the committal in Ottawa -- as long as it coincides with a visit to Mummy.

Well, he's back and our "normal" is returning, which reminds me, I better get at that laundry! 

Back to the future.

   

 

     

Rack and ruin

Today is budget day and we're in for a very, depressing treat.  In a series of pre-budget announcements, the government (the "govern" part of this word is misleading) has dumped out billions on ludicrous expenditures like:

• A renter's bill of rights
• $1 billion for school lunches
• $6 billion for infrastructure
• $15 billion for construction loans for apartment buildings, and
• $1 billion for child care.

And this doesn't include the billions already thrown overboard during their disastrous eight-year tenure!  When questioned by a parliamentary committee, claiming the new defence spending estimates were aspirational, Minister Bill Blair said, "These are not aspirational, they are funded costs we will be deciding in the next weeks."

Huh!?  They still have to decide, so of course they remain aspirational.

Here's who will be delivering the budget:

Our Toenail-picker-in-chief, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland.

The always-classy Freeland.

While Freeland and Trudeau are pouring money down hopeless holes in other countries, this is how they have left 24 Sussex:

The Official Home of the Prime Minister -- a derelict dump.

Would the Americans ever tolerate their White House in this shape?  Would the Brits allow Number 10 to sink this low?  Obviously, that's what these goons think of Canada:  Nothing.

In other news, Tesla is laying off 10 percent of its staff because sales of EVs have slumped.  All I can say is, hahahaha!  I've been saying this forever.  They're too expensive and the batteries -- if you can find somewhere to charge them -- are not reliable:

Elon Musk is no dummy.

Same old, same old

Failing grade.

Taking children into care in this province has only resulted in many dying of drug overdoses.  The minister of child and family services, Searle Turton, should hang his head in shame.  So should the minister of Indigenous relations, Rick Wilson, because of the 47 deaths from overdoses in care, 35 were Indigenous youth.

Sad, sad story.

Children are taken into care because of neglect, abuse, malnutrition or drug-addicted parents.  But at least they are alive at the time they are apprehended.  Taking them into "care" means many end up just plain dead.

Cindy Blackstock, head of the child and family "caring" society, should resign.  She claims child welfare is her primary concern.  Really?!  I don't buy it.  Her organization gets millions and you can bet her salary is at least six figures while so many native children suffer in squalour and distress.  (But that's another issue.  Where does the $30 billion a year given to native leaders go?)

Doesn't she look cute.

It's unconscionable that such highly-paid ministers and community "leaders" are not doing their jobs.  Shame, shame. 

 

What was that all about?

The solar eclipse yesterday left me completely puzzled.  What was all the fuss about?  It was the so-what of the year here.  I mean, it was only a 40 percent eclipse in this region and I noticed nothing.  That may have been because I was sitting in a restaurant having lunch, but still, there was really nothing to see.

This was what happened in Cochrane and Calgary:  Nothing.

Before the event, it was plastered hysterically all over the media.  A million people flocked to Niagara Falls and booked every hotel room in the area just to see it.  They packed parks, set up campers and trailers and picnicked with lawn chairs everywhere.  Why?  I couldn't have cared less.  Cloudy days have been a lot darker here.  I'd rather watch a beautiful sunrise or sunset, but then again, what do I know?  Apparently, I was the odd woman out, but that's usually the case with everything I do or write.

Another annoyance is the ad campaign to get everyone to buy a KardiaMobile kit.  All over the airwaves, this pitch is to get us to fork over $99 for a device that will let us track our heartbeat anytime we want.  Who wants to?!  Are we supposed to whip out our device at a party to check our heart rate?!  I mean, either it's beating, or it's not.  If it's beating, great!  If it's not, you're dead.  Either way, who cares?

Let's add a couple of other irritating ads to the list.  The first that springs to mind are those ubiquitous pitches for 'Sure Health'.  G-d!#$%%#@!!!!!  I hate that guy!!%#%$#@!!  I first blogged about this in 2018.  2018!  And that jerk is still on the airwaves making me crazy!%$%#@!!!   

Right up there with him is Kurt Browning flogging the 'Chip Reverse Mortgage'.  I used to love Kurt.  Now I hate him.  He too has been yapping at me from my screen since 2018!!  Please, buddy, just stick to skating.

So, those are my rants for the day.  I feel better.

 

Weird topic

Still not taken seriously

Not sure how we got started talking about it, but a young server at the local 'Joey's' in Calgary told me about how she had been raped.  Maybe I have the look of a kindly grandmother, but she told me that the worst decision she had made was going to the police.

What did the police do?  They had to charge him, but didn't really take her too seriously in the process.  After an entire year of living with debilitating anxiety, the case was finally heard.  The outcome?  The judge dismissed it because she had been at a party and had admitted having had a few drinks.

So, the rapist walked with a smirk on his face.  "The judge made it seem it was all my fault, that I had asked for it," she said.  Having had something similar happen to me when I was 20, 56 years ago, I totally related.  So, with all the "#metoo" clamour nothing has changed.  The girl is always at fault and the perpetrator gets away with it.

Can you believe it?  Yes, I'm sure you can and it's a sad, sad state of affairs that a lovely young woman like that was basically kicked to the male-dominated, judicial curb.  

Mothers keep protecting your daughters.

     

Then what?

After you do your environmental duty and dump your gas car, then what?!  I mean, who's going to fork out $50 or $60 K for a Tesla?!  The latest is that Tesla is actually cutting production because they can't get lithium for their batteries.

Duh?!!

And if you're dumb enough and rich enough to buy one, where are you going to charge it?  Alberta is experiencing rolling blackouts because there isn't enough supply to run a measly, little province of 4 million frigid souls.  My question is, what is Marie-France Samaroden, vice-president of grid reliability operations for the Alberta Electricity System, doing?  She must be getting a huge whack of dough and yet she can't figure out the meaning of the word "reliability".

My other question is why the rebate?  If the idea is to get people to buy less gas, why are we getting a rebate at all?  Doesn't that cancel out the incentive to use less?

Duh?!!

During the January cold snap, grid alerts and rolling blackouts were also the norm, as Albertans faced days of supply uncertainty.  If you can believe it, four -- yes four! -- natural gas-fired power plants failed because of "cold-weather" issues.  People, this is Alberta.  It gets cold here!  Time to freshen up your reliability chops, Ms. Samaroden.  

"We do our best to forecast and look forward as to what the supply will be, but there's always forecast uncertainty and operational issues that occur," she said by way of excuse.  Isn't that your job?  To figure out good, old-fashioned supply and demand.  What are you paid again?  

Laughably, the much-lauded windmill generators didn't work because guess what?  There wasn't enough wind to spin them in farms all across the province!  Hahahaha!

Useless most of the time.

Said Premier Danielle Smith, "The province's electricity system has been built completely backward.  It gives renewables an outsized role in supplying Albertans with power.  We should be able to rely on a certain amount of baseload power and then have another way of approaching the issue of intermittency."

She's right, of course.  But try telling that to the incomprehensibly thick federal minister of the environment, Stephen Guilbeault.  Nothing like having a convicted felon running the energy needs of an entire country.

Felon-in Chief, Stephen Guilbeault.  An outrage.

Completely off the rails

Just caught a few seconds of a press conference Trudeau was giving on the handing of yet more billions to causes outside the constitution -- like housing, for example.  Subsidizing school lunches and issuing a 'Renters' Bill of Rights' also come to mind.  Couldn't watch the presser, because the sight of him turns my stomach, but I did catch enough to know that once again, he is widely overstepping federal jurisdiction.

For what?  For votes.  It won't work, of course, and his promises can't administratively be realized before he is booted out of office.  Thank G-d!  We are being turned into a third-world economic disaster that our grandchildren will be hobbled with.  Our Clown-in-Chief couldn't care less.  He's a multi-millionaire.

We are also pissing Americans off on an individual level.  B is down in Houston visiting his grands and says the anti-Canadian mood is definitely strong.  People he has met on previous occasions are now very cool to this Canadian man.  Our refusal to sped a measly two percent of GDP on defense spending, as all NATO member countries are required to do, is generating the belief that Canadians are mooching off other countries -- the US being the main one.

While Trudeau is handing billions to other countries, he has let 24 Sussex rot:  

The current, disgraceful state of the Official Home of the Prime Minister.

24 Sussex has been the national home of the Canadian prime minister since 1951, when Louis St. Laurent moved in, but it is now uninhabitable due to rodent infestations, asbestos and mold, so he lives across the road in Rideau Cottage. 

24 Sussex, Canada's official PM residence

His handlers, who've also completely lost the plot, have told him not to spend the estimated $18 million to fix it because of the housing crisis -- which, by the way, his ineptitude caused.  Can you imagine the US president letting the White House crumble?!  Or 10 Downing Street?!  Would never, ever happen, but here in Canada it has.

Rideau Cottage, the dump the PM brings worldwide leaders to.

Why not take a few million from useless aid to Haiti to cover it?  Jean Chrétien and Stephen Harper have volunteered to campaign a drive to get private-sector funding for the restoration.  How could this be objectionable?  Two former prime ministers, one Conservative, the other Liberal, have stepped forward to raise private -- not public -- money to cover it.

What did the PMO say to the offer?  No.  No explanation given, just No.

 As I said, Trudeau and his cronies are completely off the rails.  Nothing they do is for the betterment of our once-envied country.  It's all about votes.

Shame, shame.  

The state.....

...has no business in the bedrooms of the nation.  Isn't that what Pierre Trudeau said when he was prime minister and abolished the law against homosexuality?  Yes, that's what he said -- probably because he was bi-sexual himself.  I couldn't care less and when it concerned consenting adults, he was right to get rid of that law.

Consenting adults.

Now, however, the state is right in there between the sheets.  Trudeau the Younger has just announced the government will be paying billions for contraceptives for all Canadians.  This is yet another insane example of the many follies this government has begotten.  His government opened the immigration and illegal migrant floodgates and now has to try and control the resultant population surge.  

It ranks right up there with the millions being spent on installing tampon dispensers in all government washrooms so "women" who identify as "men" can use them.

A woman/man

But that's not all.  Now Canadian taxpayers will be shelling out $1 billion for school lunches!  School lunches!!#^@#!@!!  

None of these spending follies has anything to do with the running of the country.  They are simply hysterical moves to try and rescue Trudeau from his plummeting poll figures, which have him dead last as choice for pm in the next election.

We can't see his ass out the door fast enough!