Obama's Legacy:

Instead of leaving office like a seasoned diplomat following two terms as president of the USA, Obama is leaving like a petulant teenager.

Following a frantic attempt to choose his own successor by joining in the election activities and promoting Hillary, Obama appears to be bent on creating as much chaos as he can to thwart Trump's early presidency.

The legacy he obviously intends to leave for Trump is muddied relations with Israel and the basis for another cold war with Russia. He turned hundreds of jailbirds loose and initiated legislation that would need to be undone by his successor. He seems bent on leaving nothing but chaos in his wake.

But no one's taking the bait. Vladimir Putin's response to accusations of electronic meddling and the abrupt expulsion of a bunch of Russian diplomats was reserved and worthy of an important leader. He refused to participate in a childish game. His associates labelled Obama's actions as those of a lame duck leader doing desperate things just before his term expired.

Despite such actions, the leftist media is working overtime to accentuate the negatives and ignore the positives regarding Trump while elevating the outgoing president to the status of sainthood.

Trump, on the other hand, is looking increasingly more relaxed and confident, as he ought to be. Despite the pained yelps from the left-wing press and Hollywood elites, he has the American electorate, including all those deplorables, firmly in his corner.

Stalin's grandson:

Interesting item in the electronic media Thursday announced the death of Evgeni Dzugashvili, Josef Stalin's 80-year-old grandson. Evgeni is said to have defended his grandfather's reputation over the years since Stalin(Man of Steel)'s death in '53.

Anyone who bothers with history at all knows that Josef Stalin's reputation was not the easiest thing to defend. The guy probably killed more Soviets than Hitler. 

The Ukrainians, as members of the Soviet Bloc, viewed his administration as so draconian, they welcomed the murderous Nazis as liberators and really nice guys when they rolled through the Ukraine in the early '40s.

The news item brings to mind the time in the mid-80s I was invited along with other members of the Canadian press to have lunch with a delegation from Avtoexport. We were going to eat at Josef Stalin's favorite Georgian restaurant in Moscow City Square. Stalin ate there because he was a Georgian. That's the Russian Georgia, not the American one.

Our Soviet hosts, who communicated through interpreters during the formal talks in the Kremlin, unexpectedly switched to very good English when we arrived at the restaurant. We were seated at a long banquet table where at one time Stalin was said to have held his wild vodka-fuelled parties. The guy I was talking with seated me at one end.

The Soviets were great hosts and, following a few toasts and numerous tasty courses, I was moved to ask him if this really was where Stalin liked to eat.

"This is the restaurant where Stalin held most of his private parties," he said. "As a matter of fact, you're seated in his favorite position at the table. It might even be his personal chair."

I didn't know whether the guy was serious or simply trying to freak me out, but I did experience the strange sensation of the hair on my head bristling involuntarily.

Such was Stalin's reputation for history buffs, and I consider myself among those.  That is what poor Evgeni Dzugashvili spent his days trying to defend in the courts and in private.

Poor guy.

Electric cars:

The speculation that electric cars will  equal in number internal combustion vehicles by the end of the second decade must be a real horror story for our politicians.

Right now there's probably whole hordes of bureaucrats frantically trying to figure out how to replace the revenue they get for taxing gasoline and Diesel. 

Here in Oakville, Ontario, a long-standing motor city, more and more electric cars are showing up all the time. There are Teslas, Toyotas, and a collection of other pure electrics plus dozens of gas/electric hybrids everywhere.

It is definitely not the best of times to be investing a lot of money into hydrocarbons, but don't tell the Arabs.

It seems like only yesterday--actually, the '70s--when any mention of electric autos brought on a sneer and comments to the effect that all one needs is a really long electric cord. The problem was building a battery with enough energy density to propel a car more than a few miles.

That is still a problem, but lithium ion has been refined enough to take a family car about 400 Km's on one charge, which is good. Rapidly evolving capacitor technology promises to do even better.

How far that car would go on the coldest days of a Saskatchewan winter is not being advertised. The only time I drove one of these vehicles was during the warm days of summer in a Detroit suburb.

Entrepreneur Elon Musk, the guy behind the Tesla, is investing fortunes into batteries and further research in that department. Big players in related industries are joining in. He currently has his engineers working on electrics that you and I can afford.

I'm not sure all that is exciting motoring news. I'm one of those people who experienced a loss of driving fun when the manufacturers introduced automatic transmissions. Since then there's been a steady introduction of new technology and a steady decrease in the need for a driver to exercise any motoring skills, and more important--stay involved with what he's doing.

We have surrounded ourselves with so many technological miracles and the politicians have surrounded us with so many laws and regulations that there is a steady erosion of the necessity for us to make any decisions on our own. I'm not sure that's good.

Today, liquor and cell phones are not the only distraction for suicidal drivers. The new cars have things like astral navigation, backup sensors, automatic this and digital that, which serve as built-in distractions.

Nor have all those electronics made life any easier. I've had my Astra three years now and still haven't figured out how to re-set the time on the dash clock.

I recall fondly my '53 Ford Customline which had a strictly mechanical radio station function. Just find the station you like on the dial, unscrew a push button, push it in all the way, then screw it back in and voila! your station is zeroed in. 

The clock worked the same way. Unproductive consultation with the operations manual unnecessary.

Why the 25th?

It is generally accepted that Christmas was attached to the winter solstice.

So, why the 25th? Why not the 21st?

It is possible that the high priests and shamans among our early ancestors were unable to pin down the exact turn-around of the season. It probably took them about five days before they could say for sure that Hey! the sun is coming back.

That gave them something to celebrate and worthy of having the birth of Jesus Christ attached to that date. That's good thinking on the part of Christianity's early spin doctors.