A busy week...
but here's a breather
Here are a couple of things worth reading this morning as you charge headlong into the already action-packed month of March.
New session of the House and a throne speech that teased a couple of details we’ll come back to, plus the announcement on Bay du Nord that was just too much to digest in time for Wednesday. By the time all the hot takes are over, you’ll be ready for something a little calmer, anyway, and that’s one of the reasons you read my e-scribbles.
After all, for those who read Monday’s column, you got a taste in advance of what Pete Hegseth admitted later that day about the sorry state of the American amunition stockpiles. Widely reported but none of the commentariat’s “hot” takes have ever talked about what was right there and obvious.
In war, amateurs talk tactics but professionals talk logistics and this problem for the Americans is all about logistics. Here’s a detailed dive into the American logistics problem.
To keep you going on other subjects, have a look at Francis Fukayama’s reminder of what “western civilization” means. American state secretary Marco Rubio was speaking to a right-wing American audience when he told the security forum in Munich about Western Civilization, which he viewed in fundamentalist Christian terms. As Fukayama notes, “… the Enlightenment founders of modern liberalism agreed to push religion into the realm of private belief, and to focus politics on life itself rather than the good life as defined by a particularly religious doctrine. In addition, early natural scientists were engaged in a prolonged struggle with the Catholic Church; it was only with the separation of empirical inquiry from religious dogma that modern natural science, and the economic world it made possible, emerged.”
Then consider this thoughtful view of Quebec politics from Eric-Antoine Menard. “Horserace Polls Are a Mirage,” one of the sub-heads reminds us all, “Particularly in Québec.”
Then go to western Canada, where Paul Wells’ guest columnist Ken Boessenkool explains what Danielle Smith is up to.
We’ll see you back here for something fresh on Friday (hopefully).
Its too bad that even when Wakeham promotes what he considers great news for residents, he seems angry. For me it was not great news. And to use the Peckford line"Some day the sun will shine and have not be no more" Well, we get our usual days of sunshine, enough that we were told that all Nflders are Vit D deficient, but that they refuse to test anyone for such deficiency, even cancer patients. So many of the old get get broken hips so easily that requires costly surgeries and physical decline, never knowing they were Vit D deficient. I recall Leo Barry and Bill Marshall, and others making a toast with oil in the wine glass, and where has all our oil revenue gone since the 1970s? Hibernia, pegged at 600 m barrels (enough to supply all world consumption for only 6 days, is still pumping) and our financial situation is perhaps at it worse since the 1930s. Is 6 billion in government over 25 years going to much dent the interest charges on debt now about or over 1 billion a year? How does it compare to the Furey deal of 250 billion scam of revenue from CFs MOU? And not a word on climate risks, in the long run? Did the Trump War and rising oil prices trigger this agreement at this time, or a fluke? How does this project compare with all of the Churchill River as a revenue source, if we had a good deal on that? Or our potential for wind energy revenue? As for the sun shining, solar panels, despite its limited energy here , is becoming attractive when being charged 15 cents a kwh on our power bills. And geothermal (ground source) or mini-split heat pumps, especially when solar heat assisted with COPs here often reaching 5, well that's what makes me excited. Not enriching the oil giant shareholders, and temporary high paying jobs for a few locals. The Middle East is now aglow, mostly over oil issues, this starting about 1922, when Churchill wrote that it was easy to control the Arabs by terrorising a few villages with air dropped bombs. Imagine that was not long after the Wright brothers flight maybe about 1903. What progress we have made, hey b'y! Ed will likely give a sober economic assessment to put this in perspective, a great deal or not.