The self-loathing historian

Vincent J. Curtis

27 Feb 21

RE: Why history in our schools still matters.  Hamilton Spectator 27 Feb 21, by Craig Wallace.

The author, who calls himself a historian, falls into error when he gets into matters of law.  He also seems strangely unaware of the historical research on the Caledonia land claims that was published in the Spectator last year.

Let’s begin with his assertion that “It is recognized law in Canada that all land was owned by Indigenous (First Nations) peoples.”  Actually, no.  That’s ahistorical muddle.

Mr. Wallace is imposing on Aboriginal North America concepts and a legal structure of land ownership and sovereignty that was developed in the feudal period in Britain.  The nomadic peoples who lived in longhouses had no conception of private land ownership or sovereignty.  Even today, private ownership of land on reserves by individuals is forbidden; the band holds title to the land, period.  Original First Nations peoples, having no concept of land ownership or sovereignty, could not own land as understood in British and International law.  The very idea of a ‘Nation’ is itself of European origin.  Canadian law doesn’t suggest this.

“Before Canada can rightfully claim the land, it has to take ownership of it through negotiations with the First Nations.”  This assertion is wrong and ahistorical.  For example, HM King Charles II simply granted Rupert’s Land in 1670 to the Hudson Bay Company on the strength of his sovereignty, without negotiating with anybody.  Canada purchased Rupert’s Land from HBC in 1869 and formed the Northwest Territories, without negotiating with anybody else.  The land retained an underlying Crown sovereignty through the transfer of ownership.

“Did Canada obtain [the Haldimand Tract] via treaty – as the law states they must?”  British authorities of Quebec (as that part of British North America was then known) acquired land around the Grand River from the Mississauga First Nations in 1785 in a straightforward commercial transaction.  That land was then granted to the Iroquois bands who had been loyal to Britain during the American Revolution.  As European settlement increased, and individual Indians were selling land they privately owned to white settlers, the idea of a band reserve developed.  A central redoubt, called the reserve, was organized, and the band sold parcels of land not part of the reserve back to the Crown, then in Right of Upper Canada or Canada West.  The Crown gained sovereignty over the territory of New France as a result of the conquest of 1759, and the Quebec Act of 1774 organized the territory of southern Ontario into a new legal entity called Quebec.  Ontario and Canada are simply the latest in a line of legal authorities that exercise the uninterrupted sovereignty of the Crown over the territory in question in Caledonia.  Hence, the question, did Canada obtain the Haldimand Tract via treaty is kind of nonsensical, unless the Treaty of Paris of 1763 satisfies as answer.

Historical research published in the Spectator establishes that the Hereditary Chiefs of the Seneca surrendered title to the Foxgate property in 1844 - that “title” being derived from an underlying Crown sovereignty.  Six Nations hold title to the present reserve under Crown sovereignty.  The issue at Foxgate is whether or not a transfer of title did or did not take place.  All the evidence is on the side that it did, the Ontario law courts agreed and issued orders based upon that conclusion. 

The idea has become popular that the settlers of North America acquired a blood-guilt as a result of their settlement and their treatment of the Indigenous peoples, and that this blood guilt in their successors might be expiated by the latter’s frequent, ritual denunciations of the past.  Mr. Wallace’s article rests on this thesis.

The Enlightenment implanted in Western Civilization a tiny element of self-loathing, and this element seems to have engrossed modern progressivist thinking.  Denunciations of tiny aspects of Western Civilization are meant as a condemnation of the whole thing.  But nothing better than Western Civilization has yet been thought of, and until something better comes along (and Marxism isn’t it) we ought simply to accept it warts and all.

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The Bellowing of Walruses

Vincent J. Curtis

25 Feb 21

RE: Horwath calls for trustees to be fired.  Hamilton Spectator 25 Feb 21

Walruses are known sometimes to bellow just for the joy of hearing their own voice.  Many politicians are the same way.

We haven’t heard much from Andrea Horwath since the beginning of the pandemic.  The sound of silence must have been killing her, and she called for the Minister of Education, Stephen Lecce, to fire the four embattled school trustees on the grounds that everyone else in the fish market is calling for them to resign, and they won’t.  Those fish mongers’ barking, in turn, is based upon a lawyer’s opinion of a student’s perception.

Since the trustees are elected, they can’t be “fired” by the Minister of Education, though, who knows, in these days of COVID many people are claiming authority they don’t legally have.  I think the Minister knows the limits of his powers in this case, and so, I think, does Andrea Horwath.  It would be shocking that with all her many years in the Ontario legislature, the Leader of the Opposition wouldn’t know what a Minister can and cannot do; and equally shocking that,  knowing that a Minister cannot do something, demand that he do it anyway.  Suppose Jagmeet Singh deigned to “fire” Ardrea as head of the provincial NDP?

Sound and fury signifying nothing is typical of politics, but what is concerning here is the lack of respect by all these progressives for democracy and free speech.  Elected officials get fired by the electorate, but they also speak on behalf of the electorate.

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Pitiable in Puslinch

 

Vincent J. Curtis

23 Feb 21

RE: Ground control to Captain Tom.  Hamilton Spectator 20 Feb 21

Towards the end of her Saturday column, which ruminated, in passing, about the life of Captain Sir Tom Moore, our favorite self-pitying professor of culture studies and communications is reduced to asking, “Was Moore celebrated in part because of his connection a to white Nationalistic nostalgia focused on traditional male heroism?  We know that in the U.K….white people are far, far more likely to have been vaccinated than Black people….We know that women are disproportionately more likely to suffer the fallout from the pandemic.”

Actually, we don’t “know” any of that, but never mind.  Moreover, Britain was never a “Nationalistic” country; the sentiments about her are patriotic ones.  “Nationalism”, as in National Socialism, is what she, and Canada, fought against, and defeated.  Britain, over the centuries, has, when needed, produced a hero or two: Drake, Marlborough, Nelson, Wellington, Churchill, and Montgomery come to mind.

But the need of our professor to reduce this to a thing of ugliness is quite unbecoming.  Next time, when she reflects upon traditional white male heroism, she may find these words informative and comforting:

When Britain first, at heaven’s command,

Arose from out the azure main

This was the charter, the charter of the land

And guardian angels sang this strain:

Rule Britannia!  Britannia rule the waves!

Britons never, never, never shall be slaves.

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Soviet central planning gets recycled into Vision Zero

Vincent J. Curtis

23 Feb 21

RE: Smart streets better by design.  Hamilton Spectator 20 Feb 21

The architectural firm of Shaker and Premi has once again raised its tattered flag above the parapet and announced that their ideal city is Moscow, circa 1975.  Yes, the height of soulless, Soviet brutalism.  They call their concept, “Smart Streets.”

In Moscow, 1975, except for official vehicles and a few private cars, everybody used public transit, or rode bikes, or walked.  Few could afford to drive the Soviet-era Ladas, Trabants, and ZIL-114s on the smart streets of Moscow.  If you hate driving, Soviet-era Moscow is your kind of town.

Shaker and Premi are simply wrong to suggest that streets have but one purpose.  There are different kinds of streets, and they serve different purposes.  Both Laurier Ave., and Main St. W. are streets with sidewalks on both sides and pavement in the middle.  Main is wider than Laurier because one serves as a major thoroughfare while the other is a quiet residential street.  Kids can play road hockey on Laurier, but that wouldn’t be “smart” on Main (unless you’re BLM!)

An analysis that reduces all streets to one-size-fits-all isn’t suitable even for Moscow.  It’s classical Marxist reductionism, but if you’re into central planning and starry-eyed designs with zero applicability to the real world, then Shaker and Premi’s “Vision Zero” is the globalist Marxist, central plan you’ll love.

Architects often draw inspiration from the past, but shouldn’t sacrifice the realities of the present or the real needs of the future to a Year Zero vision.

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Another unelected mob tries to destroy democracy

Vincent J. Curtis

22 Feb 21

RE: Board committee calls on trustees to resign.  Hamilton Spectator 22 Feb 21

Cheered by the Spectator, progressives are doing their darnedest to prove that elections are a farce.  If an elected person says or does anything that is allegedly outside the permission of progressivism, that person has to be driven from office one way or another.

Donald Trump got elected because election had turned into a farce for about 50 million deplorables, and he promised to drain the swamp.  Well, the swamp proved more powerful than Mr. Trump expected, and now Professor Swamp himself is president.

Four Trustees of the most woke-progressive institution in Hamilton, the school board, are being called on to resign because they allegedly stepped outside the bounds of acceptable woke-progressivism.  The latest unelected mob to call upon the elected officials to resign is an appointed advisory committee, the progressively named Human Rights and Equity committee.  Human rights and equity have nothing to do with each other, but never mind.  And also never mind why a school board of woke-progressives would need an advisory committee on Human Rights and Equity, as opposed to, say, a Math or a History advisory committee.

If you want to know why your vote seems to achieve nothing, the campaign to destroy these four elected trustees by non-democratic means is an example of why.  There are groups that will destroy your representative if they act the way you would want them to.

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Zombies wear masks while tobogganing

Vincent J. Curtis

21 Feb 21

RE: Mask up before you hit toboggan hills.  Hamilton Spectator 20 Feb 21.

Hamilton city officials want you to wear your mask while tobogganing. Outdoors.  Seriously.

Tobogganing involves riding something very fast down a hill.  To avoid collisions, toboggans are ridden widely distanced.  Plenty of fresh air is inhaled in the course of a day tobogganing.

City officials need to have “the science” of masking explained to them.  The first step is to have them stretch out their hand on a table.  You then smash their hand hard with a ball-peen hammer.  If they react, it shows they’re sentient enough to understand what’s going to be told them.  Zombies that are “only doing their job” don’t react.

The science of masking is to avoid breathing another’s air.  Ideally, be alone.  When with other people, the ideal condition is outdoors in a breeze, as in tobogganing.  Masks could be worn when indoors and you can’t avoid an intense interaction within one meter’s distance with a contagious person.  Two meters, some say.  Two meters distance is sufficient to prevent someone from passing his viruses through the air into your breathing space.

Outdoors, in wind, viruses get blown away, meaning mask-wearing is useless, redundant, stupid, and worthy of zombies.  Intense interactions with strangers while tobogganing is rare and highly undesirable.  See “safety.”

We needn’t get into the science of masks per se, since wearing a surgical mask while tobogganing is not just useless, stupid, and unscientific; it’s downright painful due to the cold.  Zombies don’t feel pain.

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Progressives don’t believe in real democracy

Vincent J. Curtis

21 Feb 21

RE: School Board Crisis May Need Outside Help.  Hamilton Spectator editorial of 20 Feb 21.

From reading the editorial, the “outside help” referred to must be from the Chinese Red Guards.  It is obvious that the editors understand neither representative democracy, nor their own argument.

One of the crimes allegedly committed by the trustees at issue was the “efforts to silence the voice” of complainant student trustee, Ahona Mehdi.  What is the Spectator’s solution?  To silence the voices of the four trustees by forced resignation or removal!  With perhaps a period of incarceration in a re-education camp.

Free speech is most protected among elected representatives.  The reason is that, as representatives, they are to give voice to the sincere beliefs and opinions of the people they represent – warts and all.  Otherwise, representative democracy is an elaborate farce. (And they wonder why Trump got elected!)

And sometimes those representatives actually believe what they say!

The school board isn’t a private club, and by law takes money from taxpayers to fund Board operations.  The universe in which trustees are not answerable to some outside consultant is this one.  It doesn’t matter that the “independent, third party” hireling found that some trustees exhibited racism, and that the accused refuse to speak to the Spectator about it.  The trustees are answerable only to the electorate, some of whom may agree with the opinions expressed.  One of those opinions might have been, “better to keep your mouth shut and your ears open, honey”

Progressivism doesn’t believe in real democracy.  Or adulthood, it seems.  The opinions of adults need to be policed for deviations from the party line.  That’s the opinion of the Red Guards, and, apparently, of the Spectator editors.

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Theresa Tam fails basic logic test

Vincent J. Curtis

20 Feb 21

RE: COVID variants could fuel surge if rules eased, modelling eased.  Hamilton Spectator 20 Feb 21

In January, Stanford University Medical Centre released a study by four Ph.D.s and M.D.s that evaluated the effectiveness of lockdown measures used around the world to control the spread of the coronavirus.  The study concluded that lockdowns were ineffective in controlling the spread.  That’s the science.  No study to date has shown that lockdown measures are effective on a large scale, and particularly, which ones.  Comparing Florida with California or New York verifies the truth of the Stanford study’s conclusion.

Modelling of the pandemic has been disastrous from the beginning.  Modelling vastly overestimated the fatality rates of the virus, and those terrifying, but false, forecasts are what led to the policies of shutdowns in the first place.  Canada was supposed to have between 50,000 and 350,000 COVID deaths in a matter of weeks beginning in late March.  That never happened.

Modelling released November 12 predicted 6500 cases per day in Ontario, and was off by a factor of three.  No matter, other modelling justified Ontario’s shutting down temporarily and for one time only on December 26 to January 23.  Then, knock-you-socks-off modelling predicted 20,000 cases per by February 14, to prolong the shutdown and justify a stay-at-home order.  It was off by an order of magnitude.

See a pattern yet?  Ben Rhodes famously called journalists “twenty-seven year old know-nothings” who could be fooled by creating an echo chamber of alleged experts who all said the same thing.

Saint Theresa Tam doesn’t know how much more contagious or how much more deadly the latest strains are.  That’s a fact.  But she’s pushing the panic button.  That’s not based on science.  Lockdowns that don’t work against the old strain will be even less effective against one more contagious.  That’s just basic logic, at which Saint Theresa is a complete failure.

We’re supposed to follow the science, not pied pipers of panic.

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City Tax Dollars used to support Race Hustling

Vincent J. Curtis

19 Feb 21

RE: City plants seeds of regrowth.  Hamilton Spectator of today’s date.

In a representative democracy, the representatives are supposed to represent the views and interests of those whom they represent.  Otherwise, representation is a farce.  This means that if a city councillor represents a Ward full of white supremacists, as we are assured that most of them do, those are the views and interests that are to be represented in the council chambers.

What does white supremacism have to do with parks and recreation, streets and sanitation, public works, planning, or finance?  Nothing at all.  Which raises the question of why the city council is funding groups to identify and condemn white supremacism in the city?  Why should the tax dollars of a city full of white supremacists go to groups whose sole purpose is to morally condemn the sincere beliefs of the majority of taxpayers?

Why was Evelyn Myrie paid as a consultant to reassemble an anti-racism resource center that collapsed mysteriously in February 2019?  The city paid Sage Solution $89,000 to run a “hate research” project that generated only 91 responses, and, thankfully rejected a request for another $25,000 from Sage.

Racism has become a racket.  All the prominent people and organizations that are experts on racism Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, BLM, Antifa, and even Evelyn Myrie (or EMPower Strategy Group as she sometimes inflates herself to be) make lots of money dispensing advice and running programs. It’s a kind of shakedown – pay us or there’ll be trouble.

It’s not city council’s business to solve sociological problems.  At best, that’s the problem of the police department.

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The self-causing lockdown

Vincent J. Curtis

18 Feb 21

RE: Worry grows over virus variants

The tiny tyrants of Toronto want that city’s lockdown to continue, because they fear the newer strains of the virus.  Yes, I’m talking about you, Dr. Eileen (“Cruella”) de Villa.  What infection by strain “A” as opposed to strain “B”  of the coronavirus has to do with coronavirus case numbers and the concomitant saving of the healthcare system from immanent collapse they didn’t say, and no one is asking.

The alleged purpose of the lockdowns always has been to preserve the healthcare system, and it does so by “flattening the curve.”  That means in plain English extending the crisis out over time so that case numbers do not become too large at one time.  The danger of prolonging the crisis is that time is allowed for new and more virulent strains of the virus to develop.  This isn’t news to faithful readers.  In my piece of May 30, 2020, I wrote as follows:

We have two things to fear from extending the lockdown.  The first is that the virus could mutate into something more virulent, and the sooner it gets killed off the less likely such a mutation could occur.  The second is that more people are dying and will die as a result of the lockdown itself than from the virus, from suicides, undiagnosed cancers, strokes and heart attacks that go untreated, and so on.

Now that the forecasted mutations are upon us, the strategy of locking down has produced the excuse to continue locking down 

Every day I watch in amazement as the country leaps from one incompetence to another in respect of handling the pandemic.  And the alleged experts are protected from challenge, not so much by their credentials, but because they are either women or minorities.

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Bait and Switch Lockdown Excuses

Vincent J. Curtis

17 Feb 21

RE: Stay at home advice despite lifting stay at home order.

Hamilton, Ontario, and Canada have had the game of “bait and switch” played on them repeatedly throughout the pandemic.  The bait is the worry that the healthcare system will be overwhelmed if a lockdown isn’t imposed.  The switch comes when the data is trending downward, and the excuse of the parlous healthcare system no longer stands scrutiny.  Then, “we’re doing so well, we need to continue!” is argued.  Or “we’re saving lives if we continue the lockdown!” is another.  The latest is, “But there’s a new strain, and it’s here!” (Fearing one strain over another is literally racism!)

At the limit of his credibility, Premier Doug Ford promised a “temporary, one-time shutdown” beginning December 26 and ending in twenty-eight days.  That would be January 23.  I wrote at the time that Ford was lying, even if he didn’t know it then.  Some excuse would be offered to prolong the temporary.  And something did - implausible modelling, that I wrote at the time was wrong from the moment it was presented.

Now that daily cases are below a thousand a day, even Ford is distrusting his doctors and opening up to a limited degree, despite their advice, which isn’t based on saving the healthcare system anymore, but for something else.

By now, people should be sick of the lying.  The insensible doctors can only see endless shutdown; they can’t see a rhythm of two months open, two weeks closed, or some such.

There are more quacks in Ontario than there are ducks.

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Where are the climate crazies now?

Vincent J. Curtis

16 Feb 21

RE; Millions without power in Texas as snow storm slams U.S.

Where are the climate crazies now?  For decades they have assured us that extreme weather events were due to climate change, or global warming as it was once called.  We were told that the Polar Regions were the places on earth most greatly affected by climate change.  Well, how did the Arctic amass so much cold air that it could send record low temperatures and snow deep into the heart of Texas?

For twenty-five years I’ve warned about the inadequacies of “renewables,” wind and solar, to deliver the goods when it mattered most.  The Texas electric grid relied on wind turbines to produce twenty-five percent of Texas’s power.  Those wind turbines froze, the Texas electric grid collapsed, and some people froze to death.

What does all that talk about “existential threat” if we don’t do something drastic before 2030 mean now?  The public was sold a bill of goods by carpetbaggers like Al Gore and John Kerry, and plenty of other people who stood to gain power and profit if the government fell for their storyline, as most did.

The climate crazies can’t admit that natural variability plays are role in climate variability.  If they did, they’d have to quantify how much was due to nature and how much due to man, but research into that question was blocked by climate crazies with power.  Climate change is a con game, and a political game, played for power.  Wind and solar have been demonstrated to be disastrous failures. 

But is anybody going to listen?  Are our politicians going to wake up and say, “Wait a minute!”  No, they’re not, because then they’d have to admit they were wrong for their entire careers, in some cases.

You watch.  As memory of this fades, the climate crazies will come out again and start spreading there nonsense like some religious cult they belong to, impervious to facts.

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Teachers try to cancel Trustees.

Vincent J. Curtis

15 Feb 21

RE: Teacher’s Union Calls on Trustees to Resign.  Hamilton Spectator 13 Feb 21.  The executive of the Hamilton Wentworth District Elementary Teachers Union called on the School Trustees accused of impure thoughts to resign.  There’s an old Arab saying, that a sick camel draws fleas.  The union executive is just piling on, and we can’t eliminate careerism and personal advancement from among their considerations for speaking out.

The right of free speech is deeply imbedded in Canadian law.  While the right is enshrined in the Charter, it is also in Common Law.  People have to be allowed to say what they think for civil discourse to proceed at all.  Given the importance of free speech in political affairs, the right of free speech is especially protected among elected representatives.  What is the point of representation if the representative can’t say what his constituents actually think, warts and all?

Consequently, it is deeply offense for the Teacher’s Union executive to call upon School Trustees to resign because of what the Trustees might have said among themselves.  As educated people, the Teachers ought to know better.  But let’s put the shoe on the other foot and see how it fits.

The executive of the Teacher’s Union ought to be fired for insubordination and improper interference in democratic representation.  Then, the members of the union should be examined for Marxist-Anarchist-Nihilist sympathies, and if so found either re-educated or fired.  Teachers instruct impressionable students, and they can’t indoctrinate or pollute the minds of the next generation with poisonous ideas.  The Trustees were talking to other adults; but teachers talk to young, impressionable minds.  The Trustees are harmless; let’s cancel the teachers instead.

I’m sure the outrage at such a proposal would be vociferous, among certain groups.  Others might smile.  But something like what I proposed be done to the union is what has been advocated for the Trustees and the Board.  And a better case can be made that the Teachers are Marxists than that the Trustees are racists.

Enough already!

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Panicky Pills Press for Prolonged Pandemic Imprisonment

Vincent J. Curtis

13 Feb 21

RE: Projections suggest for jumping gun.  Spectator editorial of today’s date.

The Spectator’s immortal sports columnist Bob Hanley once said of heavyweight boxer Leon Spinks that Spinks had “the attention span of a retarded gnat.”  The same problem afflicts the Spectator editors.  The editorial today aired favorably all the comments by panicky-pill doctors who don’t quite think it’s a good idea to lift the lockdown – despite all the data.  (“We could get a third wave!” they fear.)

The purpose of the lockdowns, the shutdown, the stay at home order, and masking is to protect the health care system from collapse.  I typed that slowly for easier comprehension.  The lockdown is to protect the health care system from being overwhelmed by cases all at once.

This is a pandemic.  People are going to die.  People are going to get sick.  The area under the curve remains the same regardless of shape.  All this is admitted by the so-called “experts.”  The shutdown and stay at home orders were implemented because projections – since proven wrong – indicated that 20,000 cases per day would afflict Ontario by February 14, and those numbers would overwhelm the health care system.  Nothing like those projections actually happened, and so there is no longer justification for shutdown, lockdown, masking, or any other measure of Stalinism.

By now, intelligent people, and even those with good memories, ought to be suspicious about doctor’s projections.  On November 12, Ford’s doctors projected 6500 cases per day by December 15, and were wrong by a factor of three.  No matter; Ontario needed to shut down on December 26.  On January 12, in the third week of a four week “temporary, one-time only” shutdown, Ford’s doctors projected 20,000 cases per day, and were knock-your-socks-off wrong.  Cases fell from 3800 to 1000 per day.  Ontario’s health care system never came close to being overwhelmed.

If life comes down to a pattern of working for six weeks and shutting down for two, that’s better than shutting down indefinitely with no hope of relief.  Or waiting upon some doctor who works 9 to 5 getting out of the right side of the bed.

Premier Doug Ford is surrounded by more earnest quacks than a duck pond.  It ill behooves the press to cheerlead for continued Stalinism. 

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Doctors want lockdown maintained

Vincent J. Curtis

12 Feb 21

RE: COVID projections predicting a disaster.  Hamilton Spectator of today’s date.

Even a stopped clock is right twice a day, and that’s a better record than Ford’s medical modellers have had in forecasting the pandemic.  Listening to Ford’s doctors on the pandemic means you need to see a doctor – a psychiatrist!  Their opinion that Ontario needs to stay in shutdown and stay-at-home mode even now amply demonstrates their incompetence.

Let’s remember now and always that the purpose of the lockdowns was to save the health care system.  Slowing the spread, flattening the curve, and all those other cute phases weren’t intended to reduce the number of deaths.  The area under the curve remains the same regardless of shape.  The aim of the lockdown was to spread out the number of hospitalizations over time so that ICU beds and ventilators wouldn’t run short.  Well, Ontario is now well past the peak of the second wave, and the health care system wasn’t overwhelmed.  People can be let free, for a while.

On November 12, Ford’s doctor-modellers forecasted that by December 15 there would be 6500 cases per day.  They were wrong by a factor of three.  No matter, Ontario needed to shut down, something I said at the time would cause daily case numbers to rise dramatically.  They did, to a peak of 4500 on January 8.

On January 12, as case rates were beginning to fall, Ford’s modellers said that by February 14 Ontario would have as many as 20,000 cases per day.  To save the health care system, Ontarians needed to stay at home.  Well, knock my socks off if case numbers didn’t fall from 3900 per day to about a thousand a day, and guess who predicted that!

When doctors who work from 9 to 5 say that Ontario ought to stay under lockdown regardless of the data, you need to ask them why.  And buy a lottery ticket, you have a better chance of guessing right.

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Aunt Jemima goes full Queen of Hearts

Vincent J. Curtis

11 Feb 21

What could be more specifically racialized than an organization called, “The Afro-Canadian Caribbean Organization?”  You can’t just be from the Caribbean to join, you have to be Black also.  Whites not allowed.  Its president is the ubiquitous Evelyn Myrie, who has been a race hustler for forty years.  The CBC did a story on those four unfortunate women school trustees, and Myrie supplied the outraged-by-the-racism angle.

Ironically, in the photograph that accompanied the story, Myrie is seen wearing a hat that looks like it belongs on Aunt Jemima.  Myrie hasn’t lived in Jamaica in a lifetime, but there she is in mufti, like a Bavarian wearing lederhosen during Octoberfest.  Employing the now popular escalation tactic, Myrie went after the entire HWDSB for not sanctioning the poor women, saying the Board itself has lost the public’s trust.  How she would know that is a mystery.  Sanctions should have been swift and immediate, claimed the imperious Queen of Hearts.  Myrie called on the trustees to resign, saying their conduct was egregious.  Affirming a Christian “all lives matter” is now a crucifying offense in the race hustling business.

Taking full advantage of the interview, Myrie added that all trustees ought to be reviewed for racism, and all ought to be subject to a mandatory diversity and inclusion brainwashing, er, training.

Aunt Jemima would do her cause a favor if she wasn’t so obnoxiously racist herself.

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Lockdowns don’t work

Vincent J. Curtis

11 Feb 21

RE: Lockdown is working, stats show

Post hoc ergo propter hoc is a Latin expression of a common logical fallacy; it literally means, after it therefore because of it.  The Canadian Press article bylined by Colin Perkel fell into this logical mistake by casually claiming that the lockdown somehow broke the spread of COVID-19.  The claim simply isn’t true.

As my readers knows, a scientific article written by four Ph.D.s and M.D.s from Stanford University (a.k.a. “The Science”) and released in early January concluded that lockdowns had no discernible effect on the spread of the virus.  One only has to look at the cases curve on the Ontario COVID website to see the non-effect of the lockdowns and the truth of the article.

The second wave began in early August when mask mandates became all the rage.  Cases continued to rise through progressive tightening.  Cases rose sharply after the Christmas shutdown was implemented, peaked about four days before Ford’s “knock-your-socks-off” press conference that forecasted 20,000 cases per day by February 14, and has now fallen below a thousand a day.  This was the second time Ford’s modellers were disastrously off the mark.  You can see from the shape of both waves that lockdowns did absolutely nothing to alter the course of the pandemic.  Now that he’s in office, Joe Biden admitted as much.

For a media that mindlessly bleats “follow the science,” maybe they should actually read and understand the science, and begin to question the competence of those in authority.

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White Woke Folks Learning Hard Lesson

Vincent J. Curtis

10 Feb 21

RE: School Board will reconsider sanctions

Woke progressivism: it’s coming for you.  Yes, even those woke progressives who think they’ve got immunity - you just have to be lower on the hierarchy of victimhood than your accuser.  In this case four white women are lower on the scale of victimhood than a teen-aged woman of colour.

There is no institution more ridiculously progressive than the School Board, yet four female trustees are accused of racism.  The men on the board were smart enough to steer clear the accuser, who is a “woman of colour.”

We also see the “drive-by” technique, used by the media to take out public people, being applied in this case.

Thinking they were beyond reproach, the Board foolishly allowed an intellectually corrupt investigator to prepare the prosecutors case against the selected members of the Board.  The investigator could not logically establish a case.  There was insufficient corroboration, i.e. a case of she said –she said on the accusation that one of the four used the N-word in private to describe tennis star Serena Williams; but where corroboration was lacking, corruption supplied the crime.  The investigator corruptly held that saying “all lives matter” was racist and inciting, even though it isn’t and the accuser isn’t Black.

So we have this continuing farce where analysis is not permitted, and the charge of racism is left to stand unchallenged.  No public discussion is allowed on whether the investor erred in deciding that the statement was racist.  The narrative switches to a discussion of the punishment the four female trustees, all of whom are white, are supposed to receive.  And silly people like Steven Del Duca are obliged to say silly things.

Elected officials are accountable to their constituents, not to investigators, newspapers, students, or various riff-raff.  The electors hold their representatives accountable, and no one else.

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Impeach!

Vincent J. Curtis

9 Feb 21

RE: Group ramps up call for removal of trustees.  Hamilton Spectator of this date.  A continuation of the saga of racism at the Hamilton Wentworth District School Board.

There’s the sublime, the ridiculous, and then there’s the School Board.  Attacking the Board is group that follows the classic tenets of the Marxist hive.  The front has an heroic name, Hamilton Students for Justice, but it has no history, no membership list, no board of directors, and for all we know consists of one person, its spokesperson Gachi Issa.

Composed of high school student(s), the hive knows nothing, but, inspired by the ill-fortune of Donald Trump, has called for the impeachment of four members of the School Board.  Impeachment and removal is not a Canadian thing, but when you’re just throwing mud against the wall you’ll try anything that might stick.  They don’t even know that a process of recall is what is used in America to remove most elected officials.

Now we know that the four wicked people on the Board were all women, and all becomes clearer.  The women treated student trustee Ahona Medhi like one of the girls, and that was their mistake.  Medhi expected to be treated like a princess, and instead was treated as an eighteen year old.  The men did not make that mistake.  But now we hear the cacophonous cry of stinking fish all around the province.

The farce has been exposed.  It wasn’t white male racist supremacism that’s at the root of the issue, but hurt feelings caused by expectations not being met.  Time for this issue to go away.

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Massive Arctic Cold freezes Global Warming Theory

Vincent J. Curtis

9 Feb 21

Ever see a .50 caliber bullet ricochet off armour plate?  Watch how these bullet points bounce off.  According to the CBC:

-          A mass of cold air arrived on Sunday, setting daily temperature records in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

-          According to Environment Canada, 22 cold-weather records were broken throughout the three provinces.

-          The coldest temperature was recorded in Uranium City, about 1,045 kilometres northwest of Regina, where it was –48.9 C, breaking a previous record of –40 C set in 2019. 

-          In Alberta, the lowest temperature was recorded in Fort Chipewyan, about 710 km northeast of Edmonton, where it was –47.3 C, breaking the previous record of –45.6 C set in 1936.

-          Edmonton International Airport was close to breaking a daily record. The temperature reached a low of –43.8 C, with the previous record set on the same day in 1994 at –43.9 C. 

-          In Manitoba, the temperature was a bit higher — but not by much. The community of Roblin, about 405 km northwest of Winnipeg, set a new record of –42 C, breaking the previous record of –40.6 set in 1972. 

The climate crazies have assured us for the last quarter century that the polar regions are the most affected by global warming, and particular weather phenomenon were caused by “climate change.” So, how do they explain record cold from the Arctic?

After being pent up all winter, Arctic air has been released in a massive blob over the prairie region of Canada, and has reached deep into the United States.  This record cold is fatal to the global warming theory.  But ask the professional climate crazies to explain this record cold?  They don’t; they can’t, and they’re never asked.

Facts like these bounce off climate crazy foreheads like armour plate had replaced cranial bone.

It’s another one of those things they have to ignore or laugh off because it doesn’t fit the theory.  But keep this in mind next time you hear of a scientist claiming that crickets chirp louder because of climate change.

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Marxist Hive harasses city budget deliberations

Vincent J. Curtis

8 Feb 21

RE: Bringing justice to city budget deliberations.  Hamilton Spectator Op-ed of 6 Feb 21.  Written by “The Just Recovery Coalition” a group of non-profit organizations in Hamilton ‘advocating for a fair and equitable recovery from COVID -19.’  Specifically the non-profits are: The YWCA Hamilton, Hamilton Social Planning and Research Council, Environment Hamilton, Hamilton Roundtable for Poverty Reduction, The Disability and Justice Network of Ontario, SACHA, Hamilton ACORN, Hamilton Center for Civic Inclusion, Hamilton Community Legal Clinic, Spectrum, and Hamilton Community Benefits Network. Notice how innocuous-sounding the names of these groups are?

What could be more unserious than a Marxist hive arguing about justice, equity, and investment?  The Just Recovery Coalition is just such a Marxist hive spouting the latest globalist nonsense out of Davos.  Build Back Better! 2SLGBTQQIA+!

Let’s straighten out the Hive’s circular definition of justice.  Justice isn’t ‘the practice of assessing the fairness of relations between individuals and groups.’  If you define just as “based on what is morally right and fair,” then you’ve just contradicted yourself.  It’s one or the other; but in fact justice is neither.  Justice isn’t a kind of assessing, and what exactly is morally right and fair depends too much on one’s conception of morality.  A Muslim finds it perfectly moral to enslave a Christian or to kill a Jew.

Justice consists in treating equals equally and unequals unequally.  There are courts of justice and courts of equity.  Courts of Justice administer and apply the law, and everyone is equal before the law. An example of a court of equity is a bankruptcy court, where creditors are assigned the spoils of a ruined company.  Equity is intended to be a kind of corrective justice.

Hence, when the Hive speaks of justice and equity, they cloak the equity they seek with the respectability of justice.  They seek the spoils of city taxation for their purposes, which have nothing to do with justice, properly understood.  True justice requires that the imprecations of the Hive be ignored.

It’s about spending the people’s money.  Governments don’t “invest,” Marxists; governments spend.  Pressuring the people’s representatives to spend money on your pet projects is undemocratic.  But then, you’re Marxists; to hell with the wicked, white taxpayers who are responsible for all the injustice in the world!  By screwing them, we get the corrective justice we seek!

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Pandering to Big Mo

Vincent J. Curtis

8 Feb 21

RE: The Hamilton Spectator once again sucks around Big Mo in an editorial.  It complains about Quebec’s Bill 21, as if the suppressed rights of English speaking Quebeckers no longer mattered.  But having accepted that, it forms a precedent.

“Why won’t PM defend Quebec minority faiths?” the Spectator asks plaintively, as if it didn’t know.  For balance, the editorial also drags in Erin O’Toole and Jagmeet Singh, who, of all three, ought to be the most exercised over Bill 21.  Hint: it has to do with Quebec’s 75 Commons seats and the great popularity of Bill 21 among Quebec’s majority French population.  Unlike English Canadians of urban areas, Quebeckers aren’t suffering from a crippling loss of cultural confidence.  Quebec will remain French because the French culture and French language are good, and under threat.  Quebeckers aren’t going to wonder whose province Quebec is.

“Nor has anyone convincingly explained why wearing a religious symbol and responsibly performing a government job should be mutually exclusive.”  What if that religious symbol is a swastika, as it is to a Buddhist?  Maybe the Jews will take offense.  Maybe Lebanese Christians will take exception to their public servant wearing hijab.  The wearing of a mask - speaking of offensive religious symbols - will defeat communication with a lip-reading deaf person.  Wearing symbols won’t affect the person doing the job, it is the people around them who may be affected, and that matters too.

Finally there is the court challenge.  No one who is into mask-shaming and supports punitive lockdowns has any business whinging about infringed Charter rights.  Bill 21 invoked the Notwithstanding Clause and still courts pretend jurisdiction over it.  A farce of power-grabbing,

Vive le Quebec libre!

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Canadians sacrifice while China burns - coal, that is.

Vincent J. Curtis

6 Feb 21

As reported by Breitbart News, the U.S. based Global Energy Monitor and Helsinki based Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air found that in 2020 China built 28.8 gigawatts of coal-fired electrical generating capacity.  A further 36.4 gigawatts of capacity was approved for construction in 2021.  China presently has 88.1 gigawatts of capacity under construction, and a grand total of coal-fired generating capacity under development of 247 gigawatts.

By comparison, Ontario boasts 40.6 gigawatts of total generating capacity from all sources, and only four percent of that total comes from sources that create CO2.

The point here is the scale, and the scale of growth.  Every year, new Chinese coal-fired electrical generating capacity approximates Ontario’s total capacity, and their new planned capacity when finished will be more than six times Ontario’s total capacity.

It raises the question of why Canada is making such sacrifices to reduce her own puny contributions to world CO2 emissions?  Canadian sacrifices will be more than replaced every year by additional CO2 emissions from China!

Sure, Canadian politicians can put on moralistic airs and vainly strut about the world boasting how good they are at making Canadians sacrifice for the good of the planet, but what is the use?  Ask Justin Trudeau about Chinese construction and he’ll answer moralistically that good Canadians need to sacrifice for the good of the planet.

These sacrifices are all in vain!

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Progressives applaud suppression of Proud Boys

Vincent J. Curtis

5 Feb 21

RE: Let’s hope Proud Boys are over.  Editorial, Hamilton Spectator of today’s date.

It is clear from reading the editorial that the writers don’t believe what they’re saying.  They say that Proud Boys are, in fact, a terrorist organization, but the evidence to support it simply isn’t there.  Terrorist explode bombs, bring down airliners, and assassinate public officials.  The intent of these actions is indeed meant to achieve a political goal, but, disregarding the fact that the Proud Boys have done none of these things, what political goal have the Proud Boys announced as their aim?

There isn’t any.  So far as I can tell, they are group that is more cultural than political, and their political goal, insofar as they have one, would be congenial to the 75 million people who voted for Donald Trump.  This isn’t exactly terroristic, that is, if you can put aside your progressive daggers for a moment.

The one claim, that they may have been involved in the breach of the U.S. Capitol building on January 6 (spare me the Democrat- inflated rhetoric about insurrection!), admits, inter alia, that Trump actually didn’t incite an “insurrection”; it was planned beforehand.  So, which is it?  Trump or pre-planning, you can’t have it both ways!

Antifa and Black Lives Matter fit the description of terrorist organizations far better than the Proud Boys.  They do have political objectives, and Marxism-Anarchism-Nihilism is my summary of their motivation and methods.  They are anti-democratic in aim and method.  Anti-democracy is an overthrow of the current system.  The Proud Boys were organized as a satire on Antifa and BLM.  You tell young men often enough that they are the root of all evil in the world, that they are irredeemably racist, that they a specially privileged on account of their white skin, and hold white supremacist views whether they realize it or not, is bound to produce a reaction.  In this case, some of them apparently said, “Okay, that’s me.  I’m wearing it proudly.  Screw you.”  This isn’t how real terrorists work.

For some reason, modern woke progressivism needs an enemy.  In the Proud Boys it created a real one where none existed before, except in its fevered imagination and fraudulent intellectualism.

It was gratifying to progressives that bully-cop thug Bill Blair, who became a Minster of the Crown, struck at a hated enemy while ignoring Antifa and BLM.  But you should realize this tears at the Charter of Rights, and follows on the terrible rending of the Charter with all these COVID edicts and decrees.  The Charter was written precisely to be observed in times like these, and the Charter has been reduced to a dead letter.  Those who push back are deemed enemies of the people, selfish and foolish and who are going to kill people.  You know the groups: Hugs over Masks, Rebel News, merchants in open in defiance of closure decrees, anti-lockdown protesters.

The description of how the Proud Boys came to be named terrorists, involving due process and intelligence reports, is bullshit.  Stop regurgitating the propaganda of The Man.  They were so named the same why Julie Payette was named Governor General, at the inspiration of Justin Trudeau.  What wiretapping was done to gain that alleged intelligence, and was it legal?  Did the government have a warrant?  Who was named on it, and what was the alleged crime?  Take a step back, and you can see that something isn’t right in that claim, or in the claim that they can appeal the decision.  How can a group appeal, when the government seizes its bank account, which contain the means by which it can buy the legal assistance?  Aren’t the individuals named as members subject to arrest, since they are, after all, terrorists, and must therefore have committed actual crimes?  Again, step back, have a smell, and analyze what’s being said.

It is hugely gratifying to progressives that government power was used to strike at an organization it doesn’t like.  But what goes around, comes around, and progressives may regret applauding these exercises of government power when someone else takes political control.

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Cowardice in face of BLM

Vincent J. Curtis

5 Feb 21

RE: Former student trustee calls for removal of officials.  Hamilton Spectator of this date.

Thanks to the excellent reporting of Fallon Hewitt, the intellectual bankruptcy of the report that accused the School Board of racism was make plain.

Nearly everyone has heard of the classic syllogism: All men are mortal; Socrates is a man; Socrates is mortal.  It contains a major premise, a minor premise, and a conclusion.  Now consider this one: All human lives matter; Black lives are human lives; Black lives matter.  The second syllogism is identical in form and validity to the first, yet the bankrupt report maintains that the conclusion is true, while the major premise, an uncontroversial statement of Christian belief, is false and antagonistically racist.  The report holds, in other words, that a true conclusion is validly drawn from a false premise.  It further maintains that a characteristic of the major premise, i.e. racism, is not present in the conclusion.

The argument that Black lives matter, while all lives matter is a racist rejoinder, comes from the BLM movement and its evil parent, woke-progressivism.  It says something that no one takes the BLM movement seriously enough to evaluate its philosophy, which is incoherent through and through.  People bow before BLM not because of the power of its argument but because of the physical power it can bring to bear against persons who reject it, as serious intellects must.

The intellectual bankruptcy of the report derives from the cowardice, physical and intellectual, of its authors.

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Woke-Progressive school board has to do better

Vincent J. Curtis

4 Feb 21

RE:  'We have to do better' Public board chair says on release of racism probe.  Hamilton Spectator of today's date.

Do you laugh, or cry?  I laugh.  The most woke and progressive organization in the city of Hamilton got rebuked for failing to be woke and progressive enough.

A characteristic of a woke progressive is that they feel themselves exempt from the ramifications of their own ideology.  Their wokeness grants them an indulgence from sin, like a rich guy buying a brick for the dome of St. Peter’s.  Then, someone said, not so fast.

The woke school board failed to provide the complainant, Ahona Medhi, then an 18 year old student trustee, with a with a ‘safe and welcoming environment.’  Who knew Medhi could be so high maintenance?  Her most serious charge, that a trustee used the N-word, couldn’t be proven.  That some trustees said “all lives matter” is held without doubt to be anti-Black racism, is itself evidence of the intellectual corruption – of the investigators. 

The answer is not to get woker; it is to realize the falsity and foolishness of wokeness.  The answer is not to “place high expectations” on trustees, or to restrict free speech at the board table. (Both those things are anti-democratic; but then again progressives believe in rule-by-expert, not democratic representation) The answer is to grow the hell up.  If a person is so lacking in robustness that they can’t handle the elbowing in the corners or the heat in the kitchen, they should get out of the kitchen and stay out of the corners.

High-schooler Medhi, then too young to buy herself a drink, got a life lesson on how mature adults do business, and was shocked when they didn’t take her seriously.  She told tales out of school  If she were a Canadian white male instead of a Muslim female immigrant, not even the investigators would have taken her complaints seriously.

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Proud Boys declared terrorist group

Vincent J. Curtis

3 Feb 21

I must be doing something wrong.  I tried, but Bill Blair passed me over when it came to naming terrorists.  I’m the real deal, Bill; it’s these others that are put-ons! Maybe Blair is too afraid of me.  He’s obviously afraid of Antifa and BLM, which have rioted, burned, looted, and smashed for real.

I’ve destroyed a multitude of progressive pretensions, exploded dozens of progressive myths, and attacked Anrifa and BLM mercilessly, more often than any Proud Boy.  I’ve taken pot shots at the Prime Minister and called for heads to roll at Queen’s Park!  Rhetoric not violent enough, Bill?

The Proud Boys are nothing but a satire on Antifa and BLM.  They were founded by a political satirist. When you call a whole class of people racists, white supremacist, and generally deplorable and irredeemable, the more excitable among them think they might as well act that way.  And that’s why they were named terrorists while Antifa and BLM weren’t.  Bill Blair fears BLM and Antifa, but he can safely look tough and bully the Proud Boys.

BLM received a reported $10 billion from big tech in the aftermath of the George Floyd affair to pay for their political “activities,” and to keep them away from Silicon Valley.  What could the Proud Boys do with $10 billion?  They could probably make the Prime Minister take a knee in obeisance to their cause right on Parliament Hill.

Blair didn’t name me as a terrorist because he’s terrified of me.

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Mighty big of Mayor Bigger

Vincent J. Curtis

3 Feb 21 

RE: Sudbury Mayor wants checkpoints

You know you’re in the throes of frenzy and madness when mayors of small cities are calling to pull up the drawbridges.  Mayor Brian Bigger of Sudbury wants checkpoints placed along Highway 69 to prevent the non-essential diseased of Southern Ontario, and especially Toronto, from passing through, or worse, staying in, his beautiful city.  Highway 69 connects with the Trans-Canada Highway, Highway 17, in downtown Sudbury.  Sudbury is the “gateway to Ontario’s north” and Mayor Bigger wants the gate shut to the non-essentials of the south.  Mighty big of him!  Does that work both ways?  Can Northern Ontarians be prevented from travelling south to the big smoke?  If they do, can they be prevented from returning home?  No clarity on that from Mayor Bigger.

The second wave passed its peak on January 8, and case numbers and hospitalizations are in steep decline.  Cases are now at early November levels, and any danger of the health care system being overwhelmed is passed.  The excuses for the “temporary, one-time” shutdown and the house arrest orders from the Premier are gone.  The medical experts whose “knock your socks off” forecasts proved to be obsolete four days before they were presented, and Ontario will not have 20,000 cases per day by February 14^th, as they confidently predicted.  This was the second time the doctor-modellers proved to be disastrously wrong, and ought now to be counted among the boys who cried “wolf” too often.

Now the question becomes how long will the media be shilling COVID fear, start asking where the vaccines are, and begin observing civil rights violations?

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Saint Theresa Tam: political grandstander

Vincent J. Curtis

1 Feb 21

RE: Tam urges provinces not to loosen COVID-19 restrictions

An enterprising reporter needs to stick a microphone under Saint Theresa Tam’s nose and ask who the hell she thinks she is.

Saint Tam has called upon the provinces not to loosen COVID-19 restrictions.  Let’s recall that the purpose of closing down the social and economic life of a province is a political decision, made to save the health care system from collapse.  It’s not to save lives, it’s to spread out the pain over time to keep hospitals from being overwhelmed with cases all at once.  “Flatten the curve,” remember?

Hence, when it is clear that the curve has been flattened, and the provincial health care system won’t be overwhelmed, there is no further reason to keep restrictions going.  The goal has been achieved; more economic and social pain is no longer justified.

Saint Tam is not a provincial premier, and does not run a provincial health care system.  Her advice is purely gratuitous.  She has used her new-found fame for political grandstanding before, as in “we can’t save every life, but we must save every life we can.”  That’s a moral argument, arguing for political action.  It is not medical advice.

If Saint Theresa Tam wants to offer political advice, she should make an honest woman of herself and run for public office.

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A Ranger Reset?

Vincent J. Curtis

21 Oct 20

The United States Scouts was a unit of the United States Army between 1866 and 1942.  It consisted of Native American Indians, who served as guides and, at times, combat soldiers when the United States settled its West.  These were the days before topographical maps, and local geographical knowledge was essential for successful military operations against plains Indians hostile to settlement.

Indian scouts were hired for their skills and their loyalty.  They did not train in the conventional combat methods of the U.S. Army of that period.  When they fought, which was often, the Scouts employed the methods and tactics of Indians.  The last Scout Troop was disbanded in 1942, co-incident with the disbandment of the last horsed U.S. Cavalry unit at Fort Huachuca, Arizona.

Akin to the Scouts, the Canadian Rangers are hired into the Canadian Army reserve on account of their knowledge and skills acquired from a lifetime of experience in Canada’s North.  They receive little training, and they are equipped economically.  The CBC recently published an opinion piece by Robert Smol which argued that the Rangers needed to change – reset – “to keep pace with a changing North.”

Smol’s opinion deserves to be seriously considered.  He holds an M.A. in War Studies from RMC, served for twenty years in the CAF, and retired as a Captain in the Int Branch.  Smol says that the Rangers should be trained to a military standard of Army Reserves.  He says that the Rangers are the only element of CAF reserves that cannot be sent directly into combat.

The Rangers have been in the news of late on account of a few of their members being associated with “far-right” “hate groups.”  Could military training cure the Rangers of unpopular political views?  Smol thinks yes.  “…disgraceful conduct by non-Indigenous members of the Rangers should be our clarion call for a Rangers reset.”

I don’t think Smol has considered all the factors.  In the first place, what offensive and defensive army tactics could the Rangers employ in Canada’s far north?  Are section attacks that are taught on the Mattawa Plain relevant to warfare on the Arctic tundra?  Who would be the enemy, and what would be a possible strategic situation?

Does the Canadian Army even have a defensive doctrine that is applicable to tundra?  The Russian Steppes are not at all like our Arctic tundra.  You can’t dig slit trenches in tundra.  Maneuver Warfare, with tanks and wide, sweeping maneuvers as occurred in Russia 1941-1944, simply isn’t applicable to Canada’s high Arctic.  Before the Rangers are trained in combat operations, maybe the Canadian Army needs to develop a force employment doctrine for land operations in the high Arctic first.  After that, you still have to define a place for specifically Ranger operations.

Smol, I think, neglects the reason why Canada even has a Ranger force outfitted and organized as it is.  The first Rangers were organized during World War II to serve as eyes and ears on the British Columbia coast against possible Japanese operations.  After the war, the same idea was leveraged to maintain a Canadian military presence throughout the North.  Occupation is an important component of sovereignty, and nothing says occupation like guys with guns.  Aboriginal habitation doesn’t count as a sign of sovereignty.  Yes, Canada maintains a post at Alert, but the Arctic is a big place, and Alert doesn’t cover the entire region.

Another advantage to the Rangers as presently constituted is economy.  They don’t cost a lot of money to get the job they do, done.  That job is demonstrating sovereignty.  If a military situation arises that is bigger than a Ranger Patrol can handle, it’s the job of the big boys from down south to deal with.  Rangers are the recce element.

Nevertheless, Rangers were deployed to Neskantaga First Nations for a real-world Aid to the Civil Power operation last November.

Trained militia reservists are known to have awkward political views.  Military training didn’t cause them, or cure them.

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Michigan needs a coup d’état

Vincent J. Curtis

1 Feb 21

RE: Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer threatens to shutdown pipeline that carries half of Ontario’s fossil fuel supply from Alberta.  Spectator editorial 1 Feb 21.

Are y’all in Ontario missing Trump yet?  The progressive climate crazies seized power in the U.S. and are now threatening the lives and livelihoods of their soul-mates in Ontario. All for the good of the planet, you understand.

Cutting off Ontario from half its supply of fossil fuel?  We didn’t mean to be taken this seriously this quickly! The expression the editorial was searching for to describe the prospective action of Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer was casus belli.  I’m not sure Trudeau could use this term with Joe Biden, because these days Biden barely grasps English, never mind Latin.  But suddenly cutting off Japan out of self-righteousness from oil is what led to the attack on Pearl Harbor.

The wicked witch of the mid-west was beloved when she was a thorn in the side of Donald Trump and abusing power left and right over the pandemic.  Now, completely mad, she’s going to abuse it to the detriment of Ontario.  What is needed in Michigan is a coup d’état, but unfortunately both the Lieutenant Governor and Attorney-General of Michigan are Democrats, and Trump arrested a group of plotters who were going to kidnap Whitmer.

None of this would be happening if Trump were president, and y’all know it.  Trump was many things, but he understood business and economics and his word was good.

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