laverdiere should just up and join the liberal party, already.

don't be surprised if she crosses. and good riddance.

https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/ndp-shifts-position-on-sensitive-venezuela-issue-despite-differences-of-opinion-inside-party

so, these are not the timelines i wanted, but i at least managed to get all of the email sorted into folders over the last two days.

you can't finish doing all of the things unless you do all of the things, first. so, that's one of the things. finished. just keep going...

i think i should have heard something back on the print destruction request by now, and will need to look into next steps. i am preparing myself for the need to sue the rcmp over this - which i'm willing to do on principle. any law that allows that cops to keep prints on an arrest for being annoying in applying for an apartment is clearly overly broad and needs to be struck down by the court.

i mean, it'll be easier if they just do it.

but, i'm willing to go to the supreme court if they don't.

well, the media is reporting that the s-300 missile defense system is finally operational in syria.

i don't want to be dismissive of the israeli capabilities - it's quite well known that they have very well trained pilots and, perhaps more importantly, very advanced hacking and espionage abilities, which is especially important in contrast with the russians, who are still dominant in hardware manufacturing but are decades behind on the software side. the israelis may very well find themselves able to shut the system down remotely with minimal effort; i would not expect the russians to be able to defend themselves from an israeli systems blitz, in the long run - the israelis will eventually solve this problem.

if the system is at least operational in the short run, the next question to ask is what kind of coverage exists. i would suspect that there will remain weak spots that can be exploited, and the israelis will find them. it will be up to the russians to adjust.

but, if the israelis are serious about these attacks until at least election day, we'll see how serious the defenses are.

this is the same bullshit conspiracy theory the us state department was pushing.

https://www.canada.ca/en/global-affairs/news/2019/01/statement-on-health-and-security-of-canadian-diplomatic-staff-in-havana-cuba.html

one would have expected the old liberals to push back.

but, the new liberals will no doubt make it a point to rhetorically impugn the cuban government as war criminals.

if pressed on the point, freeland may even move to align on the blockade.

our policies have changed.

https://www.thechronicleherald.ca/opinion/mckenna-trump-trudeau-on-collision-course-over-cuba-sanctions-281906/

when america purchased louisiana, the french in the area really assimilated remarkably well. i don't know how much emigration occurred, but i know the french are still there - i meet some of them in detroit.

on the other hand, the british conquered the french settlements in canada, which at the time included a chunk of the american upper midwest, with the final battle happening in 1763. i suspect the difference between conquest and purchase is the reason our french remain french - just as your spanish remain spanish.

so, the proper way to convert what american textbooks say about hispanics is to replace them with references to the french. and, the french are indeed the second largest ethnic group in canada, by a good distance. while there was some early spanish exploration up the coast, the british and spanish did not come into anything resembling a conflict in the areas we now call canada. besides the conquered french settlements, the only other european power we found ourselves in competition with was the russians - a competition that of course continues to this day over the arctic. well, i guess we've had some skirmishes with the danes over greenland, too.

but, we didn't have this tapestry of european colonies. delaware was a swedish colony. new york was a dutch colony. pennsylvania was a german colony. there's nothing like that, here - it's just the british and the french, with the russians to the north and the far west. it's true that we settled large amounts of northern and eastern europeans on the plains, but that was directed - there weren't ukrainian or finish or norwegian colonies, just large amounts of migration.

the scots and welsh came with the brits, as elsewhere in the empire. and we took in a lot of irish in the nineteenth century, as the americans did, too - as well as italians in the early 20th. but, up until 1970, we really didn't have the kind of diversity that the united states had, with all of these conquered territories being organized into semi-autonomous states. we had the british and the french. and the natives...

so, there's the comparison between the french in canada and the hispanics in the united states. there is also a comparison between blacks in the united states and indigenous groups in canada, although it is much weaker. and, where immigration is shared (irish, italians) you can draw those comparisons. beyond that, much of the demographic analysis really breaks down as incoherent.

our largest visible minority group is "south asians". american demographics don't generally - from what i've seen - separate between south and east and west asians, but just put "asian" on the survey and leave it at that, which is kind of useless if you want any meaningful analysis. if you add it up, canada is nearly 15% "asian" - meaning asians are numerically as important in canada as blacks are in the united states, although they don't tend to vote as a block. in fact, south asians tend to vote liberal while east asians tend to vote conservative, which i might argue ought to be the other way around, but is based on weird historicisms that are hard to explain in this space. it's not hard to understand why chinese immigrants may have an attachment to free market economics, but they tend to be less social conservative; on the other hand, south asian immigrants tend to be very traditional and kind of ideal conservative voters, but often end up voting liberal (or ndp) due to the left being a little more inviting. i would hazard a guess that this might flip over in the second or third generation. it might have already happened in toronto.

the point is that, behind the french, which occupy the role in canada that hispanics do in the united states, the next largest voting bloc is recent immigrants from asia - mostly middle or upper class, highly educated and generally relatively pro-market, a stark contrast with the bloc of black voters in the united states.

you'd think the liberals would know this, right? it's increasingly unclear.

i'm going to hope that it's just one prominent advisor that can get axed, and not systemic. but, it might be.

but, i need to point something else out, because there's a consistency at play around it - somebody in the pmo is using an american textbook or something, because they seem to be basing their policy on american demographics.

trudeau seems to care more about black history month than trump does. but, it's directed at 0.5% of the population. the remaining african-canadian population is mostly carribbean (or directly from africa) and does not have the same history, or any attachment to "black history month". the pmo just thinks it's governing from sacramento.

likewise, our "latino" population - spanish-speaking canadians - is something like 1% of the population, and not localized in any specific region, except perhaps toronto. they're mostly middle class, and a variety of racial categories - many from south america, and pasty white. so, we don't have a mass of hispanic voters with a defined agenda to kowtow to. we don't have a miami. we have normalized trade relations with cuba.

there are more people of chinese, indian and philipino descent in canada than there are hispanics - and, as of 2016, are nearly as many arabs. given population growth, in 2019, there must already be more arabs than hispanics in canada.

yet, if you were to look at canadian foreign policy across the board since 2015, from nafta to venezuela, you'd think trudeau had a powerful hispanic bloc to answer to.

it must be in the textbook, it's the only explanation, but it's just not there in real life.

in purely geostrategic terms - if we want to get into it - what canada wants is for venezuela to stop producing, or start exporting solely to china, or something, just anything to stop them from contributing to the glut in american oil supply, because our resources are landlocked and we're currently getting ripped off.

helping the americans get venezuela back on track is a policy that is directly harmful to us.

yet...

see, we kind of went through this in the middle east, as well, and these analyses are so weirdly american-centric, in ways that i'm not sure the government even has it's head around.

let's suppose that this useful idiot guaido can pull off a bloodless coup, and manage to get elections up and running in the country. what happens on the day after?

well, the oil starts pumping.

and prices go down.

good for america, right?

well, did they think this through? they didn't. because, in purely geostrategic terms, we are in competition with venezuela for the american oil market - and we benefit by anything that keeps the country unstable, and the oil off the market.

i hardly think a slash in global oil prices is what the liberals are hoping for the day before the election.

the only thing this government is thinking about is brown-nosing the president. it's sad that we've been reduced to this. but, here we are.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-canadas-leadership-on-venezuela-is-misguided-misdirected-and-a/