DID TESLA “GAME” THE FEDERAL REBATE SYSTEM?

Elon Musk is a lot of things, and almost every one of them is not a positive, at least in my mind.  Must I now consider that he might be a crook on top of everything else?

I’m not even entirely sure if the guy is actually human or some lab stunt that got away from the boys and girls who toil down in the Black Ops department.  That’s a gate we want to fix, real fast.

Comedian Mike Myers captures it best when he does his Musk impersonation on Saturday Night Live.  Like a lot of things with Myers, he sort of over-does it, and he may have as well with his Musk schtick, but there’s one part that he seems to nail bang-on.

The part where, in mid-impersonation, he suddenly stops, makes some unnatural body movements, and facial expressions, then says “glitch” followed by “buffering,” as if the insufferable little puke was some sort of Cyborg operating on Dollar Store AA batteries that just ran out.

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CANADA STRIKES BACK: SAAB GRIPEN INSTEAD OF THE F-35?

The Locheed-Martin F-35 is an impressive piece of technology.

The single-engine stealth fighter was identified as being an integral part of the future of the RCAF, or Royal Canadian Air Force.  So much so that the government has moved ahead with the purchase of 88 of the creatures, with the first sixteen of them due to be delivered as early as next year.

This, as presently constituted, is the Cadillac of warplanes, and there’s a reason why Israel bought a truckload of them, because Israel has no choice but have the most formidable airforce in its neighbourhood, if not the best in the world pound for pound.

But there’s a difference between Canada and Israel then it comes to air power.  Foremost is that the Israelis utilize a lot of attack missions, or offensive operations, in which the need for stealth — the ability to approach targets without being detected by enemy air defences — is absolutely essential.  Often, as in almost always, the Israelis need to sneak through hostile and contested airspace to even get close to their targets, let alone return successfully from missions.  The stealth package, therefore, is absolutely essential to their function and mission set.

Canada requires an attack capability as well, of course it does, but our mission-set is mostly air defence of our home territory and air superiority as part of a combined arms approach on the battlefield.  While stealth is an important component to those tasks as well (hell, it’s never a bad thing to be invisible when you’re a warplane), it’s not as vital as it would be to our friends in Israel.

But in the F-35, we’d have it anyways, so what’s not to like?

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A FOX FOR THE FIVE

Hero.

A person recognized, admired, and idealized for courage, outstanding achievements, or noble qualities.

Correctly, a hero doesn’t have to be someone who shows up guns-blazing at a critical moment to save the day.  Nor does it have to be the person that rescues the damsel in distress that somebody tied to the railway tracks, if that kind of thing actually happens, especially in light of rail cutbacks.

A hero can be anyone.  A hero can be you.

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AMERICAN TOURISM INDUSTRY TAKES HIT

A number of American tourist groups within the industry are hurting because large numbers of Canadian tourists are turning their backs on America and finding other places to go spend their tourism dollars.

So these tourist people are determined that a reasonable course of action would be to form roving groups of industry representatives and ambassadors and come to Canada to beseech us to reconsider, and to run once again into their welcoming arms.

Um, no thanks.

They’ve decided to come to Canada and tell us how much they love us, how much they miss us, and how much they understand our plight in the face of damaging tariffs imposed by their government.  You know, the one they elected.

Um, no thanks.

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TRUMP’S TARIFF MOUTHPIECE

“If you make him unhappy, he responds unhappy.”

U.S Commerce Secretary Howard Lucknick isn’t just a bit of a jerk, he’s all-in.

He’s the guy who parrots his boss when he says it’s all our fault, as in Canada’s, that this whole tariff thing is happening with the United States.

As I age, I find it more and more difficult to analyze things like this, with people like this, without the use of heavy doses of truck-drivin’, horse-wranglin’ profanity.  I have driven a truck, have never sat a horse, but I feel that I possess more fine cuss words than just about anyone this side of the Canadian Shield.  And a lot of those outside words could be utilized to offer a fulsome description of a skid like Lucknick.

A poetry of the profane, if you will.

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A CEASEFIRE WITH RUSSIA?

That Donald Trump desperately wants to win the Nobel Prize for Peace shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone.  I’m surprised he hasn’t awarded himself the presidential Medal of Freedom but there’s still time for that, right along with pardoning himself in perpetuity, you know, just in case there’s any discussion that he might have done anything illegal somewhere along the way.

This clown wants the peace prize so badly that he has no care for how many people will have to die for him to achieve it, or for him to be given it, upon his own personal demand, lest he threaten to invade Norway, the home of the award.

He will sell anyone out to get it.  If Melania were to be the last remaining obstacle, I wouldn’t like her chances for longevity in the White House.

After ambushing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office with the help of VP Vance and that odious boyfriend-reporter of Marjorie Taylor Greene, it appeared that Ukraine was in a bit of a rough spot.  Kicked out of the white House unceremoniously, and told that he was being “disrespectful,” Zelenskyy headed for the airport and found himself surrounded by supportive NATO members the very next day, with our own prime minister Justin Trudeau in attendance and among them.  In fact, Trudeau went to Ukraine himself in a demonstration of solidarity which was somewhat ironic, as Trudeau, and the country he led, have been significantly disrespected by Trump and Vance themselves recently. 

It seems that, for the Americans, disrespect is a relative thing.

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BUILDING HOMES TO BEAT TARIFFS

Ontario’s municipalities want to build houses.  Lots of them.

They also want to tackle the problem of housing by taking existing buildings and infrastructure and bringing them up to speed so as to enhance efforts to add to affordable and supportive housing in the province.

All of this is ambitious, and all of this costs money, plenty of it.  And in the face of an economic downturn brought about by reckless and negligent trade policies originating south of the border, it may seem to be a hill with a slope that’s too tough to climb.

But that’s the point.

The Association of Municipalities in Ontario, or AMO, believes that this is precisely the time to beef up investment in housing starts and housing completions, along with upgrades to existing stock and buildings that seem to be lacking purpose.

The municipalities feel that this proposed injection of stimulus money, over and above current levels of funding, is just what the province and its citizens need in the face of troubling economic times.

It’s not a new concept, and it has worked before.

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THOSE DAMNED CAMERAS

I was right, in that I knew I was wrong.

At least partially.  Maybe even more than partially.  But even with the tiniest sliver of potential accuracy, I still seemed to be way out in front of just about everyone other than staff when it came to those bloody cameras.  I have no idea about the car, as in how many, what type, where it/they might be, and what the plan, if any, might be moving forward.

To me, it was almost as if most of council had no idea about much to do with these cameras, certainly already purchased, and that car(s), almost as if they were hearing about it for the first time.

It’s disconcerting.  After watching in disbelief as they waded through a can of crushed armpits on the HR Liaison issue, another treat lay in front of me, as well as the edge-of-the-couch crowd watching live on YouTube, a number that may well have approached the teens.  Not the kids, but the numbers.

Along came the the cars and camera thing.  And while the discussion was much more lucid, it was a discussion where there was a dearth of information available for Council to make a responsible decision.  And I get that.  There’s plenty of detail not included, or not forthcoming, or just plain not there.  So on this point, I’ll grant them a political mulligan, just out of a sense of trying to be a good sport.

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HR LIASON: A PIÑATA THAT ISN’T THERE

Oh my God.

I can’t think of anything better to really say as the HR Liaison issue came up a third time, and for a third time it was like wading in a pool full of absolute muck.

I’ve never encountered brick-think on such a scale as I witnessed Tuesday night at the Renfrew Town Council meeting.

These people seemingly have a huge degree of difficulty when it comes to determining how Stage 3 grievances are to be heard.  It’s not the most complicated of things, but you’d never know it from sitting in this room for what seems like hours talking about the same thing over and over and over again, all the while cancelling out options with votes as the back-and-forth debate rages, and heads shake.

All of the very worst things that come to mind when criticizing Council come to the forefront on this particular issue.  Add to that the usual ambiguity and imperfection from certain staff by way of explanations that don’t address the question.

It’s like watching a blind-folded kid swinging wildly at a piñata, only there’s no piñata.  Or if you prefer, taking a bunch of cats for a walk without a leash. Walking through a cornfield?

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CARS AND CAMERAS: AGAIN

I’m going to get some of this wrong, I’m sure of it.  But I’m going to go ahead and report what I can, and if anyone out there wants to educate me, I’m easy enough to find.  I’d ask the official types for verification, but they don’t have a strong history of returning messages or email enquiries.

If I was to wait for them to help me along, I’d be left stranded without a guide.  So as best I can, the story moves forward.

In a previous article, I mentioned something about surveillance cameras and cars left in storage, the product of a provincial grant worked out between the former Police Services Board and the province to provide Renfrew with equipment to be used to combat car theft, both here in Renfrew and in the province at large.

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