Author: Blazingcatfur

‘The populist movement is irrepressible’

France is being rocked by a political earthquake. Earlier this month, the right-wing populist National Rally (RN) surged in the European Parliament elections. Marine Le Pen’s party not only topped the polls – it also won double the vote share of President Emmanuel Macron’s liberal, centrist Renaissance. In the immediate aftermath, Macron dissolved the French parliament and announced snap legislative elections, the first round of which take place today. He had hoped to rally voters behind him against the spectre of the ‘far right’. But all the polling suggests his gamble is set to fail. RN is on course to come top, and may even win a historic parliamentary majority.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inPopulism

UFOs: From psychology to air traffic, are we closer than ever to an answer?

This is the Calvine photo, famous in Brit UFO circles.

As the new series of the BBC’s Paranormal looks into alleged UFO sightings, one aerospace expert says accessible, modern technology puts us in a stronger position than ever to work out what’s going on in the skies above us.

It was a rainy day in Pembrokeshire in February 1977 when a group of pupils from Broad Haven Primary School claimed to see an unidentified flying object (UFO) outside.

David Davies, who was just 10 at the time, remembers his fellow students coming inside throughout the day “trying to alert the headmaster that there was something strange going on”.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"UFO's"

Canada ‘sleepwalking’ into cashless society, consumer advocates warn

A consumer group is urgently calling on the federal government to follow other jurisdictions in the U.S and Europe and bring in legislation to stem the slide toward a cashless society.

Only 10 per cent of transactions in Canada today are done using cash, according to Carlos Castiblanco, an economist with the group Option Consommateurs.

“There is a need to protect cash right now before more merchants start refusing [it],” Castiblanco recently told CBC Radio’s Ontario Today.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Digital Currency", "Surveillance Society", Canada

Michael Higgins: Retiring defence chief says buckle up, Canada, we’re on cusp of war

His leadership ensured the tip of the spear would be transgender.

Canada’s outgoing top soldier is a joyous pessimist, if such a thing is possible.

Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Wayne Eyre warns that the world has entered a “pre-wartime security environment” with multiple threats and opportunities for countries to violently clash.

“If you’re in uniform, you learn to be pessimistic about the security situation because you’re trained for the worst case,” Eyre said in an end-of-term interview with the National Post on Tuesday. “Given the indicators and the trends that we see, I am pessimistic about the security situation.”

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"CAF - Canadian Armed Forces"

MORGAN: Trudeau must go

The Liberal Party of Canada is in dire straits. The loss of Toronto-St. Paul’s in a byelection is more than a setback for the party. It is a catastrophe. Toronto-St. Paul’s isn’t a bellwether seat that could swing either way with the political winds. It was one of the safest Liberal seats in Canada and had been in their possession for more than 30 years.

If Liberal MPs weren’t already in a panic before, they certainly are now. If Toronto-St. Paul’s can fall to the Conservative Party of Canada, any seat can.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inCanada's Corrupt Liberal Government

WTF?

It appears the Queer Pallie supporters shut pride down – Pride Parade cancelled mid-route after protesters strand marchers and floats

Meanwhile in Winnipeg – Pride weekend anti-Semitism a shocking display

h/t Patti Jo

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inWTF?

Are you proud to be Canadian? Poll suggests fewer people are feeling that way

OTTAWA – A new poll suggests Canadians’ sense of national pride is lower than it was a few years ago.

Polling firm Leger asked 1,600 people how they’re feeling about being Canadian ahead of Canada Day.

The results suggest the vast majority of respondents — 76 per cent — would call themselves proud Canadians.

But 45 per cent of survey participants said they were feeling less proud than they did five years ago.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inCanada

Putin dreams of Third Rome. It will be a Second Mecca

Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov is Putin’s ally

Six months after invading Ukraine in 2022, Putin signed a decree reinstating the Soviet-era “Mother Heroine” award, given to women with ten children. The first winner was Medni Kadyrova, wife of the Chechen dictator Ramzan Kadyrov. Who is he trying to fool?

In 1991, the Soviet Union had 120 mosques. Within twenty years, they built 8,000.

These are the numbers that make Vladimir Putin sleepless, together with the massacre against the churches and synagogue in Dagestan.

In the next 15 years, a very probable scenario will be one in which in the largest metropolitan areas of Russia – Moscow, St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg – the majority of the population will be made up by the Muslim community.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Islamophobia", Russia

The Media Is Clueless About Shift Toward ‘Populism’

The world is moving away from centralized bureaucracies and towards communities and individuals.

David Brooks is the regular alternative voice discussing politics and public affairs for the government-supported Public Broadcasting Service’s News Hour. He is a regular columnist for the New York Times, a former editor for the Weekly Standard (from its inception), and a contributing editor to progressive Newsweek and the Atlantic Monthly.

Wikipedia noted that Brooks has been described ideologically as a moderate, a centrist, a conservative, and a moderate conservative. He has been a professor at Duke University, taught at Yale University, and was elected to the University of Chicago Board of Trustees.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Elites vs. Populists"