French protests threaten to spill into Europe

The cost-of-living crisis is hurting the whole continent

Shocking scenes emerged this weekend from Sainte-Soline, a rural district in Western France. Police vehicles burned as protestors hurled rocks and fireworks. At one point, police officers on quad bikes used what appeared to be light mobilised infantry tactics against the protesters, who opposed the building of a large water reservoir to be used for farm irrigation.

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Death By a Thousand Cuts: Who Wants Justin Trudeau Gone, and Why?

The pressure has been building for months. What did Prime Minister Justin Trudeau know about intelligence reports on foreign interference in Canada’s elections, and when did he know it? Why is CSIS leaking like a sieve? Why won’t the PM call a public inquiry? And so on, and so on.

Then, 24 hours before Trudeau was to welcome United States President Joe Biden on his first state visit to Ottawa, another bombshell. Global News reported that Liberal MP Han Dong allegedly advised the Chinese consulate to recommend delaying China’s release of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor from prison in 2021, so as not to “benefit the Conservatives.”


It’s a good piece and one that takes a similar tack as my own speculative entry which asked why Jacinda Arden & Nicola Sturgeon suddenly “resigned.” Like Trudeau they are regarded as China’s useful idiots. “

New Zealand’s Jacinda Ardern, Scotland’s Nicola Sturgeon And Canada’s Justin Trudeau – What Do They Have In Common?

Justin’s relegation to the Useful Idiot fringe may help explain the CBC’s ham-fisted propaganda piece published yesterday which sought to reassure someone that Justin was a trusted ally of the US and Five Eyes.

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World ‘population bomb’ may never go off as feared, finds study by “Always wrong” group

The long-feared “population bomb” may not go off, according to the authors of a new report that estimates that human numbers will peak lower and sooner than previously forecast.

The study, commissioned by the Club of Rome, projects that on current trends the world population will reach a high of 8.8 billion before the middle of the century, then decline rapidly. The peak could come earlier still if governments take progressive steps to raise average incomes and education levels.

The new forecasts are good news for the global environment. Once the demographic bulge is overcome, pressure on nature and the climate should start to ease, along with associated social and political tensions.

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It’s time for Hollywood to grow up

After 15 years of non-stop big-screen spandex, superhero films are finally losing their powers.

Have we passed the peak of superhero movies’ dominance of the big screen? I certainly hope so – and the signs are promising.

For more than 15 years, the film industry has been colonised by daftly named characters in spandex, playing out inane plotlines against a brain-bleeding cacophony of cartoonish CGI.

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Adieu to the Internal Combustion Engine: Brussels and Berlin Reach Agreement

The end of the traditional internal combustion engine is coming into view—at least for EU consumers. On Saturday, March 25th, Berlin aligned with the European Commission, bringing closer a post-2035 ban on the selling of cars using such engines.

Berlin’s erstwhile obstinacy gave way after it successfully negotiated an exemption for cars running on synthetic e-fuels, which are ‘CO2-neutral’ overall. To meet its 2030 and 2050 climate targets, the EU has made the transition to zero-emission vehicles within its borders a priority.

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Rex Murphy: Ignoring the Chinese ghost at Trudeau and Biden’s banquet

Ah, the Biden visit.

One of the more empty moments of our turbulent times. A distracted American president and a troubled Canadian prime minister sharing a plate and oozing mutual admiration.

Bring on the appetizers.

Wonderful to see the U.S. president finally drop by. A Canadian visit used to be the first “foreign” stop on every new American president’s itinerary. But better late than never at all.

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Global Affairs Canada slammed in audit for not tracking billions in foreign aid

Global Affairs Canada has no sense of whether development aid meant to help women and girls abroad is actually advancing gender equity, according to an audit tabled in Parliament on Monday morning.

“It was highly problematic that critical information, such as project progress reports, could not be readily found,” reads a report by auditor general Karen Hogan.

Disgusting animals these “Liberals” they eat other peoples money.

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Trans-activism is sexist and delusional

By denying science, the medical profession is committing some of the worst moral crimes in modern times. It must end

What is a woman?

A defining question of our times, and the title of a now infamous documentary indicating the breadth of the political chasm dividing us here in the West.

Here is an answer, summarising current scientific understanding and coming from a research psychologist and clinician.

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Trudeau, Liberals should treat China’s election meddling controversy as politically ‘life-threatening event,’ say politicos, pollsters

The China interference controversy is more explosive than the SNC-Lavalin, blackface/brownface or WE Charity scandals, and could carry serious fallout for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, says Prof. Duane Bratt of the Mount Royal University.

China’s attempts to interfere in Canadian elections is politically more explosive than the SNC-Lavalin, blackface/brownface and the WE Charity scandals, and its fallout could carry serious consequences for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s personal political career and the Liberal Party in the next election, say politicos.

“You’re dealing with a very tired government that has these other scandals in the past, but this goes to the heart of Canadian democracy,” said Duane Bratt, a professor of political science at the Mount Royal University, in an interview with The Hill Times. “It is very serious and very damaging.”

h/t KH

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Duke of Windsor ‘gave palace layout to Nazis before bombing’

The Royal Archives may help one deduce whether the Duke of Windsor helped the Nazis bomb Buckingham Palace but do not expect to find out anything about Prince Philip, a historian granted rare access to the treasure trove has said.

Alexander Larman, whose books on the royal family between the wars outline the duke’s wartime assistance to Germany and MI5’s alleged collusion with an assassination attempt, said he had been surprised at the amount of information available in the archive at Windsor Castle. He told the Oxford Literary Festival yesterday that a royal archivist had said: “We are not in the business of protecting the Duke of Windsor’s reputation.”

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My Best Friend Died From Loneliness

White, working-class, middle-aged Americans are one of the only demographics in the world that has seen its life expectancy fall. But Mike wasn’t just a statistic.

My best friend Mike died alone. That was how he lived, too. He ate alone. He slept alone. Aloneness was his natural state. At age 50, it was sepsis that officially did him in. But really, it was solitude.

Like Mike, America’s white working class is alone. Like Mike, it is being crushed by its isolation.

Since 2000, white working-class Americans between the ages of 45 and 54 have been one of the only demographics in the world that has seen its life expectancy fall. These deaths are mostly suicides. Some are officially blamed on alcoholism and addiction, but that’s just suicide in slow motion. Whatever we call them, they’re a lagging indicator of an economy in transition.

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The shameful persecution of Posie Parker in New Zealand

This is what it must have been like when women were marched to the stake. Yesterday in Auckland the British women’s rights campaigner Posie Parker found herself surrounded by a deranged, heaving mob. She had tomato soup and placards thrown in her face. She was doused with water. Huge men screamed insults and expletives in her face. The shoving of the crowd became so intense that Parker feared for her life. ‘I genuinely thought that if I fell to the floor I would never get up again’, she said. ‘My children would lose their mother and my husband would lose his wife.’

A “man” assaults a woman.

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