Author: Dennis

Getting what they wished for

Drill, Baby, Drill Shiny Pony 51 Comments

Perhaps we would not be in this predicament had the current federal government not spent years doing everything in their power to stymie oil production and the construction of export infrastructure. The Liberals would be shocked at how quickly a free market could ramp up production, but allowing a free market to function is about the last thing they would do.

“Let’s be reasonable, we can’t help Europe with oil,” Steven Guilbeault said in an interview with Bloomberg News. “Our export capacity is pretty much maxed out. We’re building a pipeline. It’s just going in the wrong direction and the idea that we somehow could start to build a bunch of new infrastructure in Canada and it would magically happen — either for gas or for oil — is not very serious.”

The ship is sinking…

Great Moments In Socialism It's Probably Nothing 25 Comments

Once the dust begins to settle over the war in the Ukraine, central banks seem committed to a round of interest rate hikes. In an economy as beset by exponentially rising debt as ours is, overburdened debtors should be on the lookout for some torpedoes racing for their hull.

“A steep path unlikely” is about as comforting as knowing that the torpedo speed has been dialed back.

The Bank of Canada will certainly raise interest rates next week. It probably should have done so in January, but Macklem decided that would have been too abrupt after promising in the summer of 2020 to leave the benchmark rate near zero until sometime in 2022.

Tipping points

Great Reset It's Probably Nothing 23 Comments

What’s surprising about the current economic climate is how little it takes in terms of an increase in interest rates to drive the marginal borrower out of the housing market. Once the defaults begin and protests over mass unemployment take hold, we will long for the days of the kind of peaceful mass gathering we saw over the past three weeks in Ottawa.

But mortgage rates have been rising since August, reaching 3.92% last week, the highest since May 2019. With borrowing more expensive, applications to refinance mortgages have fallen about 45% in the last six months, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.

Some lenders have already begun to cut back. Mortgage lender Homepoint Capital laid off nearly 10% of its workforce. Better.com, an online mortgage lender, fired around 900 workers in December during an infamous video conference call.

Creating precedents

Basic Dictatorship Let Them Eat Taser 52 Comments

This insightful article delves into the historical antecedents for Justin’s recent state of “emergency”, in particular the overreaction to 911.

In Canada, we have now arrived at the point where mass protest over pandemic measures has erupted into what might best be described as an insurgency. And Justin could scarcely have handled this in a worse fashion. He appears eager to let the crushing begin.

By positioning the protestors as “those who fly racist flags” – as a fringe minority with unacceptable views – Trudeau committed a fatal error: he left himself no face-saving exit from the imminent and predictable crisis that would befall him. No respectable politician can strike a deal with such undesirables after libeling them in the way that he did. The only path left was to crush them.

By granting himself the discretion to freeze the banking privileges of citizens without a court order or judicial review based on nothing more than a politician’s nebulous definition of “involved,” Trudeau has indeed gone full dictator.

Intimidate the intimidators

Freespeechers The Tolerant Left 6 Comments

Former Winnipegger Leonard Peikoff, author of The Ominous Parallels, finds a lot of parallels between the pandemic response and the ascent of totalitarianism. In this 25 minute interview with his ex-wife Amy, he comes out of retirement to voice support for the trucker protest and discuss a variety of other topics including vaccines, woke ideology, Edward Snowden and the quasi-censorship practiced by the mainstream media.

“These truckers only want freedom…all they want is to be left alone….there is now a massive outcry about the disaster they are causing….which is a traffic jam.”

“I’ve spent all my life life writing books but a book is not going to cure the world right now. It’s too late for that. It’s going to come down to physical resistance…that’s our only chance.”

Sand in the gears

Let Them Eat Taser There Goes The Narrative 19 Comments

For the duration of the pandemic, the MSM and it’s Keynesian court economists repeatedly told us that we could safely dismiss the cost of the restrictions and lockdowns since the economy would magically “recover” from whatever shocks it was subjected to, provided governments engaged in astronomical borrowing in order to backstop losses.

Now that additional disruptions are arising from a less politically correct source, the economic impact is suddenly front and center. There’s a way to fix that, of course, but that would injure the narrative.

Murray Mullen, the head of one of Canada’s biggest trucking firms, sees blockades at border crossings this week in terms of productivity and pinch points. He sees trucks unable to move, or forced to take roundabout routes to get where they’re going, adding extra time and distance, eating into an already short supply of drivers and equipment.

Asset forfeiture

Let Them Eat Taser Little Known Facts 27 Comments

Ezra Levant has a detailed explanation on his Twitter feed of the process by which the Ontario government is attempting to block the use of the donated convoy funds. He notes that the protest organizers will have an opportunity to respond in court in a day or two.

It’s clearly an attempt at asset forfeiture; it’s similar to the cops’ theft of the convoy’s fuel a few days ago. This is a tactic that would normally be used to seize a boat or a car belonging to a drug dealer. They are likely to have a hard time proving that Tamara Lich is some sort of dangerous felon.

But you can’t rule out the simplest answer — that the government was under such political pressure to shut down the truckers, by any means or method necessary, that they simply decided to deceive the court — anything to make these truckers go away, to hell with the law.

Update (from Robert) : Here’s the ThreadReader version of Ezra’s tweets.

Acknowledging reality

Let Them Eat Taser Little Known Facts 67 Comments

The narrative must be shifting when even the CBC recognizes the sheer logistical nightmare of trying to tow all those trucks in Ottawa as a means of stopping what has now become a growing insurgency.

Police don’t think towing the trucks is an effective solution, said Matt Skof, president of the Ottawa Police Association.

“You can tow all you want — they’re just going to return to the location, so it hasn’t resolved the issue,” Skof said. “And where are you putting all these vehicles?”

Towing large trucks is “incredibly logistically difficult,” Skof said, and any trucks removed would likely be quickly replaced by new ones arriving. Even if barriers were set up to prevent their re-entry, that would just push the problem to another part of the city, Skof said.

Treasonous thoughts

Let Them Eat Taser The Tolerant Left 37 Comments

As the narrative shifts, hopefully we will hear more calls like this one to stop the demonization of the mandate protesters.

So let’s start with Deans, whose high-drama interview with CBC’s Power and Politics on Tuesday was so rich in deliciously mock-worthy ironies.

“This is not something this country has ever seen before,” Deans began, apparently forgetting the October Crisis of 1970, the Solidarity general strike in British Columbia in 1983, the Oka Crisis of 1990, the Vancouver Stanley Cup riots of 1994, the destructive 2010 G20 protest violence in Toronto, the Vancouver Stanley Cup riots of 2011, the crippling anti-pipeline blockades of rail lines, ports, highways and ferries across Canada in 2020, and so on.

“This is treason. This is a group of well-polished, professional people that are trying to overthrow the government, the democratically-elected government of this country,” Deans said.

Men of Harlech

Forward! Historical Events 65 Comments

If the Ottawa cops decide to swarm the trucker protest, wouldn’t it be fitting that the crowd responds by singing Men of Harlech? The spirit of the song would be a good fit for the occasion. There are several versions, but below are the lyrics from the movie Zulu.

Men of Harlech, stop your dreaming
Can’t you see their spearpoints gleaming
See their warrior pennants streaming
To this battle field

Men of Harlech stand ye steady
It can not be ever said ye
For the battle were not ready
Welshmen never yield

From the hills rebounding
Let this war cry sounding
Summon all at Cambria’s call
The mighty foe surrounding

Men of Harlech on to glory
This will every be your story
Keep these burning words before ye
Welshmen will not yield

Hopeful signs…

Gain of Function Science 45 Comments

There’s no plausible reason not to act right this moment, but if Premier Moe follows through, this may be remembered as a signal victory against the pandemic restrictions.

“People are asking their government for a return to normal, a removal of public health restrictions,” he said.

“It is time for us as a government to do what Saskatchewan people are asking for.”

At present, all Saskatchewan residents must show proof that they have received two shots of the COVID-19 vaccine to enter restaurants, bars and other businesses. They also have the option to provide a negative COVID-19 test.

The current health order expires on Feb. 28. Moe said the vaccination policy will end sometime this month.

One down, several more to go…

CPC Leadership 26 Comments

While there are other politicians in this country, both federal and provincial, who are more deserving of removal from office, at least it’s a start. We’ll know for sure by Wednesday.

Ontario MP Scott Reid, chair of the party’s caucus, has informed MPs that he received written notice with signatures from at least 20 per cent of members requesting a review of O’Toole’s leadership, The Canadian Press confirmed.

One member of the Conservative caucus, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said caucus was divided evenly between supporters, detractors and the undecided, but anger is growing and the ground may have shifted.

A walk down memory lane

I, Napoleon Let Them Eat Taser 22 Comments

I guess “99% certain” just doesn’t mean what it used to.

“I have all the confidence in the world that we’re going to go back to where we were before the pandemic,” he said. “The economy will be absolutely booming as sure as I’m standing here.”

Despite comments made by Toronto Mayor John Tory earlier this week about the province needing vaccine passports moving forward, Ford said, “we aren’t doing it; simple as that,” and added that he doesn’t want to create “a split society.”

Straw on the camel’s back?

Great Moments In Socialism It's Probably Nothing Let Them Eat Taser 20 Comments

As soon as the cross border vaxx mandate was announced, various governments and organizations sought to promote the idea that the negative effect on supply chains would be minimal or even non-existent.

It’s revealing that even the taxpayer funded MSM seems to be waking up to this reality. It seems that some trucking firms are not singing from the same song sheet as the Canadian Trucking Association. Instead, they are more focused on their balance sheet, and that’s not looking too rosy.

Semi-trailers owned by a Manitoba-based trucking company are sitting idle on Saturday as about 10 per cent of the workforce is unable to cross the border due to new vaccine requirements.

That means nearly 10 per cent of the drivers who work at Bison Transport out of Winnipeg are not able to do their jobs.

“This has added substantial costs to our operation, as we have idle trucks and trailers that still need to be paid for,” said president and CEO Rob Penner in an email to CBC News.

Boosters and Omicron

Gain of Function It's Probably Nothing Safe and Effective 16 Comments

More words of wisdom from virologist Geert Vanden Bossche regarding the efficacy of booster shots and the potential hazards of future mass vaccination for Omicron.

“[If we mass vaccinate for Omicron] we end up with a situation where the antibodies can still bind to that receptor binding site, but it has no effect because the virus no longer uses the previous receptor…it will use another domain….We end up with a virus that strongly binds antibodies but the antibodies cannot neutralize the virus…. and that is a recipe for Antibody Dependent Enhancement.”

Web page with all three interview segments can be found here.

Narrative Fatigue

It's Probably Nothing Safe and Effective Unsettled Science 43 Comments

Remember when you were around 40 times more likely to be hospitalized with Covid if you were unvaxxed? Or around 15 times more likely to get Covid?

It’s remarkable how little time it took for these ratios to head for the basement. Any bets on how long it will be until the fully vaxxed are more likely to acquire Covid or be hospitalized than unvaxxed?

This sure doesn’t sound like the results one should expect from an allegedly 98% effective product. But I’m sure the situation will be measurably improved by allowing only 250 people to attend a Jets game.

Website here.

Proudly powered by WordPress & Skyrocket Themes

MENU

Navigation