Plan B Forum

This is going to be a very stupid four years...

However stupid you think it's going to be, count on it being at least three times worse.

I've got to start re-reading Camus.

BoSoxGal wrote: ↑

Tue Jan 07, 2025 7:53 pm

I've got to start re-reading Camus.

Not sure about Camus - but I am willing to have a go. I read L'Étranger many years ago - what book do you have in mind? Kafka or Orwell, maybe.

This lunacy about buying Greenland and/or Canada is just that; although Trudeau's resignation as PM weakens the Canadians (IMO) as they go into 4 more Trump years and tariffs. It will be interesting to see what happens in Canada - will they follow the rightward trend of much of Europe and the US? Trudeau's liberals got fewer votes overall than the conservatives in the last General Election although it is true that the left-ish vote was split 3 ways while the conservatives collected almost all the right-ish votes. The next election is due in October this year and although Trudeau is generally unpopular I doubt that a new leader of the Liberals will pull all the required votes then.

There is a strong movement for independence from Denmark - most residents are Inuit - but the poll numbers for independence fall if Denmark's annual contribution to the GNP is the price of independence.

The Conservatives will will a landslide in the next election based on current polling. Trudeau's resignation may pull back a few Liberal voters who were just tired of him, but nothing close to changing the outcome.

Scooter wrote: ↑

Tue Jan 07, 2025 10:33 pm

The Conservatives will will a landslide in the next election based on current polling. Trudeau's resignation may pull back a few Liberal voters who were just tired of him, but nothing close to changing the outcome.

I'm sure you are right. People everywhere are dissatisfied and think that a change in government will lead to the promised land. So we saw a leftward trend in UK - not because they have suddenly turned red (Labour's colour in UK) but because the blue Tories have been in power the last 14 years and time for a change. Starmer is not going to curb inflation and immigration (blamed for so much) and NHS waiting times and wealth imbalance in his four or five years and he will be voted out, maybe by the Trump-favored Reform UK party. Trump of course is not going to restore American manufacturing or kill inflation with his tariffs and make a Bernie Sanders type will be the next iteration of 'someone different.'

As for the Conservatives in Canada - I remember Kim Campbell in 1993 (I had to look up that date - I am constantly surprised that things happened 30+ years ago - if I had had to guess I might have placed it early 2000s - maybe 2002 or thereabouts).

Sure, we can rename the Gulf of Mexico anything we want, the Gulf of Texas, the Gulf of America or the Southern Gulf or anything else. It's not like there's some law or constitutional prohibition against it, but I don't see what difference it would make. Would renaming the golf give Americans a higher sense of pride? I don't think so it would take a lot more than that.

Y E S ! It will be glorious. New Gulf of America. New Golf Major Tournament in Greenland (the only one run on winter rules!) And Mexico will pay for it. When Florida goes under water from global warming, Trump can put his Hq in the palace in Quebec We need to extend our border to the North Pole--We have tolerated that invasion from Santa for too long. Those people up there can forget the metric system and bilingual signs. Let em, learn to speak New York, like God intended. And they can go back to using pennies.

snailgate

When I lived in Saudi Arabia we were working on the Saddam Hussein oil spill when his troops released oil as they were ejected from Kuwait in 1991, following Desert Storm. Most of the world knows the sea on Saudi's east coast as the Persian Gulf; the Arab states (Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi, UAE) know it as the Arabian Gulf, and we had to use that in local documents. But when we wrote testimony for the UN we used Persian Gulf because that is the internationally recognized name. Trump can call it what he likes and presumably he can lean on the (federal) Board on Geographic Names to call it Gulf of America within the USA but he will not have international acceptance. (Unless he buys it, which is always possible.)

I recall that; when I was in SA in the 80s it was pretty universally called the Arabian Gulf by the Saudis--of course they were having problems/words with Iran at the time.

Kind of like when I was in Argentina and the local universally called the Falklands the Malvinas.

Trump doing the same thing doesn't surprise me; most of his actions are without any real consequence, although when the consequences come due they cn be pretty bad. The man is an ass, but I wish him a long life because I think Vance may be a lot worse--he's not as stupid.

From WaPo:

Harjit Sajjan, Canada’s emergency preparedness minister, said Thursday that he had spoken with FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell and offered to deploy 250 firefighters as well as other equipment to Los Angeles as early as Thursday night.
“Canada stands ready to support our American neighbors during this challenging time,” he said in a post on X.

I thought I'd better post this in case they don't mention it on Fox.

Most likely they would be blaming us for not turning on the tap that would have allowed water to flow south to be used to put out the fires.