Want to hear a scary story? Halloween is more expensive this year than ever before — thanks to inflation.
Sure, we’re seeing higher prices everywhere we go, but when you look at the different elements of Halloween, the picture is frightening.
‘Freedom Convoy’ organizers to testify at Emergencies Act inquiry this week
OTTAWA – It was a scene of chaos and confusion in the upper tiers of the police service and local government when a convoy of big rigs and protesters arrived in Ottawa to demand an end to pandemic restrictions last winter.
That’s the picture witnesses have painted over the first couple of weeks of hearings at the Public Order Emergency Commission, which is investigating the federal government’s use of the Emergencies Act in February to bring an end to the weeks-long demonstration.
The inquiry also heard about the plight of the capital’s downtown residents, who recounted their suffering as lawlessness and around-the-clock blaring truck horns took over their community, and businesses that were forced to shut down.
$7K hotel suites. $93K catering bills. Trudeau’s buying himself a populist backlash
Forty-eight-hundred pounds a night was far, far too much for Canadian taxpayers to shell out for any hotel room for any member of our delegation to the Queen’s funeral. It was too much at $6,000 Canadian — the converted figure the Toronto Sun’s Brian Lilley reported, based on documents received through access-to-information — and it was even more too much at $7,300 Canadian, which is what £4,800 was actually worth on the day of the funeral.
If minorities abandon them, wokeists are over
The NYT, NBC, Time, are in a panic. The Republicans are fielding a list of 67 black, Latino, Asian and Native American candidates.
There was that English cartoon in which a Labor candidate approaches two voters of the working class and asks them: “Why don’t you racist fascists vote Labor?”. Something similar is happening in America among the leaders of the Democrat Party. Minorities, a historic pool of votes for progressives, are moving to the right.
The New York Times is in a panic. The Republicans are fielding a list of 67 black, Latino, Asian and Native American candidates. NBC is panicking to report that Republicans are winning among Hispanics. Bloomberg is panicking: “Republicans have the record [votes] of black and Hispanic candidates despite Trump …”. Time Magazine is panicking because in California (where the “woke revolution” has sickened minorities) Asians are looking to the right. The Washington Post panics: “The Hispanic voting margin for the Dems shrinks.” Again the New York Times: “Hispanics are shifting to the right.”
What Is America’s Interest in the Ukraine War?
RUSSIA’S INVASION of Ukraine in February 2022 has produced an outpouring of international support for Kyiv. The United States has led these efforts. Even before Russian forces surged across the border, the United States and many of its allies signaled their opposition to Moscow’s predatory ambitions by warning of a range of potential sanctions Russia would incur, working to mobilize a potential diplomatic coalition against Moscow, and bolstering Ukraine’s military forces. Since the invasion, the United States has taken the lead in providing Ukraine with military equipment and training, economic aid, a near-blank check of diplomatic support, intelligence of use for stymying Russia’s offensive, and threatening draconian consequences should Russia use nuclear weapons in its campaign. Increasingly fervent bipartisan calls to penalize Russia, Ukraine’s lobbying efforts for additional aid, mounting calls from many think tankers and pundits to do more on Kyiv’s behalf, and the Biden administration’s gradual increase in support for Kyiv since February all suggest the American commitment may only grow in the future.
They’re in with both feet now, abandoning an “ally” won’t play well on the world stage.
Elon Musk Mocks Twitter’s HR Bots After Getting ‘Management 101’ Note
Who’s going to tell the HR bots at Twitter that the new guy is not a mere middle manager?
Elon Musk, who closed out his $44 billion deal to take the social media platform private on Thursday, used the occasion to share auto-generated messages he got helpfully advising him how to be a better manager and inspire his team. The note came after the new boss sent the former CEO and a handful of other bigwigs packing his first day on the job.
“Hey Elon,” the message began. “It’s time to start Managing @Twitter (M101)!”
Congress Must Increase its Support for Ukraine, Not Cut and Run
Russian President Vladimir Putin might be suffering a humiliating military defeat in Ukraine, but reducing American support for Kyiv — as some American politicians are suggesting — will not only constitute an unconscionable betrayal of the Ukrainian cause. It will encourage Putin, and allies such as Iran, to conduct further acts of territorial aggression.
With the Ukraine conflict now in its eighth month, it is, perhaps, inevitable that a degree of conflict fatigue has set in among some politicians. But with Ukraine still managing to inflict significant defeats against its Russian adversary, the Ukrainians require more support, not less, if they are to succeed in their goal of achieving a conclusive victory and liberating their country from Russian occupation.
There are worrying concerns, though, that instead of intensifying military support for Kyiv to provide it with the firepower it requires to achieve victory over Russia, America’s political classes are tiring of their support role, and are instead looking for ways to scale down their contribution.
#Ukraine: Remarkable video of today's attack on the Russian Sevastopol Naval Base.
Ukrainian Uncrewed Surface Vessels (Drone boats filled with explosives) apparently managed to hit a Project 11356R frigate (presumably Admiral Makarov) & the Ivan Golubets Project 266M minesweeper. pic.twitter.com/6nJVkwvgKW— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) October 29, 2022
Transgendering Language
As has become flagrantly obvious over the years, the political left and its myrmidons in the media, medical industry, social agencies, public libraries, and school system have become slickly adept at framing the cultural debate between conservatives and “progressives” by mutilating discourse, fudging long-accepted distinctions, and decoupling terms from their culturally ascribed referents. What was understood for centuries and millennia as decency becomes indecency, good becomes bad, virtue becomes vice, settled tradition becomes feral violence, family and marriage become barbarism and bondage (the feminist mantra), and so on. Conversely, what is destructive of customary order becomes enlightened transformation.
Continental Breakfast (Open Thread)
“All you need is a keyhole-saw, a spoon, and clay modelling tools, a fine-tooth saw, and an apple corer.”
I think I have only one of these things, and this is literally as complicated as the pumpkin I’m going to carve is going to get. If that. (When I’m feeling particularly lazy I do two eye-ovals and one mouth-oval. Energetic, I add fangs.) And yet I love Halloween and always do a pumpkin. Anyone have any cooler ideas?
(p.s. Is there anything to do with the pumpkin flesh that isn’t better done with tinned pumpkin? And does anyone else find the words “pumpkin flesh” mildly creepy, in a Halloweeny kind of way?)
The real American divide
Most Americans are moderate and pragmatic, but politics is dominated by cranks.
Elections are never easy to predict. But whatever the outcome of America’s Midterms next month, it does seem certain that vast swathes of the American electorate will be largely ignored. In state after state, voters face a Hobson’s choice between abortion-banning, election-denying Trump loyalists on the one hand and Democrats embracing the Biden administration’s unpopular economic and cultural agenda on the other.
Will a Biden Go to Prison Instead of Trump?
Soon after he announced his run for President in June of 2015, the Democrats – along with their obedient lap dogs in the media – went after then New York City businessman Donald J. Trump hammer and tongs.
In collusion with elements of the “Deep State” within our own Federal government, fabricated accusation after fabricated accusation was hurled at then candidate Trump. Once he was elected President, the left’s smear machine went into overdrive.
Trans child rapist – who identifies as a woman – is being segregated in a male jail due to risk posed to female inmates
A transgender paedophile is being kept in isolation at a men’s prison because she is too dangerous for a women’s jail, reports say.
Marcia Walker, 48, was jailed for 13 years in 2003 after raping two girls – one of whom was aged four – and has also served time for assault and bomb hoaxes.
The child rapist, formerly known as Mark Walker, is being kept at the Category A men’s prison HMP Frankland in County Durham.
Never Forget the COVID Fanatics
Two news stories are illustrative of the current state of the COVID panic and public health. Biden got his third booster, but it appears he is nearly alone in this. Uptake for boosters is very low, with fewer than 10 percent of eligible people getting them.
The COVID vaccines’ lackluster benefits, significant apparent health risks, recent admissions that they do nothing to stop transmission, additive risk from boosters, combined with the general sense that COVID is not worth worrying about for most people have reduced COVID’s salience in the news and in our lives. With many people having already gotten and survived COVID with little difficulty, there is no longer the fear and uncertainty that prevailed in the earliest days of the pandemic.
Washington Should Halt Military Welfare for Europe
The time is long overdue for American officials to put the American people first.
Is Europe threatened or not?
For months, the United Kingdom has been leading the charge against Russia over Ukraine. When serving as foreign secretary, Liz Truss, recently ousted as prime minister, hired a Beatles tribute band to lobby Secretary of State Antony Blinken to take a tougher stand toward Moscow. Then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson even more ostentatiously played uber-hawk when visiting Ukraine, mimicking Winston Churchill, about whom Johnson wrote a biography. London’s message appeared to be “Follow Me!”
Is there proof that the UK and US sabotaged the Nord Stream pipeline?
Kim Dotcom has a spotted history, but he also has a reputation for being on top of news stories that involve information and technology. In this case, his information is that Liz Truss, when she was foreign secretary, and Antony Blinken, currently the U.S. Secretary of State, were complicit in the sabotaging of the Nord Stream pipelines that brought natural gas from Russia to Europe. Currently, there’s evidence that both supports this claim and refutes it.
Read the whole thing. It really has me concerned as I have suspected US involvement. Have we been lied to again?