Media Feeding Frenzy:

While the electronic media is going absolutely berzerk over the antics of seven-foot millionaires with the ability to put a ball through a hoop, I tend to tune in on the flashbacks of the 75th anniversary of The Normandy landing.

There's a good reason. I was 13 years old when the war ended and by then had 5 years of conditioning keeping up with people like generals Montgomery Vs. Rommel (The Desert Fox); General Heinz Guderian Vs. Marshal Zhukov; Churchill Vs. Hitler; Gen. Chiang kai Shek Vs. Gen. Hideki Tojo; and finally, dictators Hitler Vs Stalin.

It should be quite clear why people who grew up in my generation would tend to find sports events of marginal interest.

Like....what do you do for an encore?

Putin Snubbed:

Vladimir Putin was reported to be not exactly overjoyed at not being invited to the West's commemorative WWII bash on the Normandy Beaches this week. He is said to have hinted that this invasion of Hitler's Festung Europa was not that important an event anyhow.

He was right, of course. Hitler's invasion of the Soviets cost the Soviet Union over 25 million lives. By the time of the landing on the Normandy beaches, the Soviets had already beaten the Nazis back at Stalingrad and Prokorovka.

Of course, timing of the Normandy landing took place at a leisurely pace for a very good reason, which Putin must surely have figured out for himself. Churchill and Roosevelt had probably conspired to allow the two countries that had ganged up on Poland back in '39 to tear at each other's throats as long as possible before they stepped in to establish their own presence in Europe.

Still, the Soviets were allied with the West by the time of the Normandy landing and it would have been a plus for diplomacy to have the Russians join in the commemorative events this week.

Or maybe not. 

The Right Answer:

Mayor John Tory and his abbreviated council in Toronto are not holding their breath waiting to see how Justin Trudeau's carbon tax will bring world climate change to a screeching halt. They are doing something positive about it right now.

Toronto has launched a whole fleet of electric transit buses. 

This is good news. 

This is how the problem of atmospheric pollution is going to be reduced without ham-stringing Canada's industry and knee-capping every working taxpayer in the country.

Good show, guys..

The Pain::

Bringing public health budgets under control in a province following 15 years of pork barrel administration catering to big unions would seem like an impossible task.

This is especially so in a culture that has been conditioned to think that their health is not their personal responsibility, but that of the government. 

That's the problem Ontario health Minister Christine Elliott is faced with. She needs all the help she can get from the mature and responsible element in the electorate.

That very likely describes the people who elected the Ford government.

More Good Moves:

More bright moves in the works in Alberta.

Jason Kenney thinks a wage minimum reduced from what the previous NDP administration decreed will allow business owners to hire more kids looking for work for the first time.

That's another logical conclusion by the newly-elected administration. The NDP argument that $13.50 is not a living wage is illogical in the sense that it is not supposed to be a living wage. Kenney sees it as an entry-level wage for people living at home and looking for a first job. 

Kenney is quoted as saying that it is better than no wage at all when small business cannot afford to hire at the $15 minimum wage.

Good News::

Good News from the Province of Alberta.

While the Liberals on Parliament Hill are   trying their best to tax human-induced climate change out of existence, the tech industry in Alberta is putting zero-emissions vehicles to the test according to reports.

Researchers are currently running transport trucks powered by electricity between Calgary and Edmonton. Normally powered by smoke-belching Diesel engines, the tractors use electricity that does not come from lithium/ion capacitors like all the cars. It is generated on-board from fuel cells that convert hydrogen fuel. The only emission is clear, pure water.

Now, the only problem is how to generate hydrogen with a minimum of emissions.

The same problem exists with all electric vehicles, whether charged by hydro or hydrogen. Power still has to be generated with minimum cost to the environment if we want clean energy. The Alberta experiment makes hydrogen from natural gas. Either way, it is still a lot cleaner than smoke-belching Diesel.

This is a problem that is going to be solved by science and technology, not by single-minded Liberal politicians levying punitive tax loads on industry and working people.

Deep in the Heart of Taxes:

It is important for us to understand that every time the politicians raise our taxes, they get to spend a little more of our money. That's money we earn through our own effort, but do not get to spend.

Voters with a leftward list in their political postures will argue that this is okay, probably because they are either unemployed or planning to become so as soon as their guy is elected.

One has to wonder at the thought processes of leaders like Justin Trudeau and Andrea Horwath whose political philosophy appears to be to tax industry out of existence because they make too much money, apparently leaving too little for the employees (read voters).

The truth is the opposite. Industry provides jobs. It's the politicians that grab an ever-increasing share of the paycheck, sometimes on the flimsiest of excuses, like preventing the climate from changing. 

Since no industry means no jobs, what exactly is the next move? Is it to put all industry in the hands of the politicians? That's been tried before by various socialist and communist governments and found to be highly unproductive. Politicians and their bureaucrats make lousy industrialists.

Justin Trudeau's carbon tax will put the government's hands still deeper into the pockets of working people on the ridiculous notion that they can do something about the earth's climate.