From the Foreign Desk: John A. MacDonald

The Last Days of Disco

Canada, Citizen of Canucksan - Any province in Canada that has a Conservative (or even a leaning Conservative) government is dropping mask restrictions and vaccine passport requirements. It’s a similar story in the US. Most states seem to be dropping them. The Covid party is over, it’s just the hard core believers in the “science” haven’t realized that yet.

Meanwhile, the Government of Canada (read, the Liberals and NDP) are frantically casting about for a justification, any justification for the 72 hour long Emergency Act. The Governor General has claimed, without evidence, that many of the truckers wanted to “overthrow the government”. Protesters demanding the Prime Minister resign are not overthrowing the government, just removing the person occupying the Prime Minister’s office. The Public Safety Minister claimed the truckers were “rapists”. With no evidence whatsoever and with several MPs calling him on his lack of justification. Perhaps, like the Supreme Court hearings in the US, several Ottawa citizens will suddenly “remember” being raped by the protesters.

There has been talk of runs on the big 5 Canadian banks causing Trudeau to back down on the Emergency Act. It’s clear that it has happened and continues to happen in certain parts of the country. I think it’s also more likely that Trudeau realized he did not have the votes in the Senate to pass the Emergency Act, so rather than face a humiliating climb down (Trudeau can’t separate his ego from his duties) he decided to claim that the “emergency” was over.

What does this have to do with disco? For those of us old enough to remember, disco often defined the 70s. It was something that was seen as here to stay. Yet, one day, the bottom fell out of the record sales and people said that they never liked it in the first place. It quickly died, and no one has mourned it.

I think the same thing is happening here. The truckers, like the January 6 protesters, will be vilified and dragged through the courts, sentenced to the longest prison terms courts can reasonably justify and many more supporters will have their lives destroyed. It’s still happening. Yet the support for Covid restrictions has vanished, if it ever really existed. Two months ago, vaccine passports and mask mandates were seen as here to stay. Today, they’re being dropped as fast as possible. My own prediction is that in a few months, maybe a year, we will be seeing news reports about the last country/province/state/county/city to drop their Covid restrictions, with comments about how the “world has moved on without them”.

I also think that the legal challenges to the short lived Emergency Act will be causing some serious problems for Trudeau down the line. I hope that the media here will look into it and be more skeptical, but I doubt it. This will be a story that appears on Rebel News and Conservative blogs.

But it is clear to me that the restrictions are dropping because people are fed up. Yes, Theresa Tam  (Canada’s Fauci) is warning that restrictions may come back in the fall, but I don’t think they’ll get the same cooperation even if they do appear. Tam is part of the hard core believers and will have to be shown that people don’t want to put up with this Covid nonsense any longer.

The bottom has dropped out of the Covid support. It’s time for leaders to realize that it’s just not a concern for regular people anymore. The disco party is over. It’s past time to head for the exits.

From the Foreign Desk: Sir John A MacDonald

What Now, Fearless Leader?

Canada-Citizen of Canuckstan: To my surprise, it happened. After only 2 days of the Emergency Act, Trudeau rescinded it. Why? Well, that’s where the speculation comes in. To several people, the fact that Canadians were withdrawing their money from banks led the banks to pressure Trudeau to back down. Others hold that the “emergency” really was over after....two days. I find that hard to believe. Did the polls suddenly change? I’ve seen no evidence of that. Ditto that Trudeau was intimidated by the international condemnation in the press. The Canadian media didn’t really have a problem

I think it’s more likely Trudeau realized that he didn’t have the votes in the Senate. Ordinarily, the appointed Canadian Senate is little more than a rubber stamp for the House of Commons, but in this case there were several (Liberal) Senators saying that they thought the Emergency Act went too far. As well, the Senate was upset that they were pressured to pass an Act when no one could really explain what the emergency still was.

This hasn’t ended. The banks that froze accounts now have to face the fact that the Emergency Act was technically never truly in force. And many accounts are still frozen. Truck protester leaders are still in jail. And a number of lawsuits, including one by the province of Alberta are heading for the courts. This will take a long time to unscrew this mess. And the fact that Putin has invaded the Ukraine using the same language that Trudeau used to condemn the truckers is not going over well.

Hold the line. It looks bad now, but I think things will get better. Eventually. It just may take years.

From the Foreign Desk: Sir John A MacDonald

What's the Plan

Canada, Citizen of Canuckstan: I was a fan of the early 21st century Battlestar Galactica series for a while. I always enjoyed the opening titles where they said that the Cylons “have a plan”. Except, as time when on, it became clear that the writers had no plan whatsoever and plot holes in the series were papered over and handwaved as fast as the writers could come up with the next line of BS.

I see a lot of similarities in the present political situation in Canada. First, when we started hearing about this new virus from China (and it is from China), Trudeau said that there was nothing for Canadians to worry about as it simply wouldn’t affect us. The frightening part is that many government workers, including ones responsible for emergency management, believed this line and never prepared for anything.

Then, Canadians were told to stay home for two weeks to “flatten the curve”, so that the virus would not overwhelm our health care system. Oddly, making the health care system more robust is not a priority now and has not been a priority for the last 2 years. Funny, that.

Next came the lockdowns, mask mandates, more lockdowns and promises that things would “get back to normal”. Take the vaccine and we all go back to our regular lives. Then the goal posts moved and EVERYONE had to take the vaccine for that to happen. Blame the unvaccinated, it’s a pandemic of the unvaccinated and it’s their fault. Numbers started showing that it was the vaccinated and triple vaccinated who were the most likely to be infected and the whole “pandemic of the unvaccinated” was dropped, but not before provincial health agencies started hiding their infection numbers.

Through it all, we’ve been told over and over again to “follow the science”, yet for some strange reason the “science” has always said that the solution was more government power. Are you picking up on a theme here? I think the Canadian government and Trudeau in particular simply has no plan (or tossed the one they had out the window) and does nothing but react. Like a single-cell organism, all they have is stimulus and response.

Which brings us to the trucker protest and the Emergency Act (which passed Parliament). Trudeau dismissed the truckers as holding “unacceptable views”, fled the capital and did his best to ignore them and their desires to see an end to all the lockdowns and mandates. He had no plan to deal with them. And they stayed. Border crossings blocked. Bouncy castles in the streets. All Trudeau does is escalate, so the Emergency Act was the next step, because now Trudeau’s pride is hurt, he feels threatened and does not know what to do.

And still there is no plan to end the federal mandates. I expect them to last as long as Trudeau thinks he can get away with them, as I expect the Emergency Act to be extended as long as possible. None of the parties want an election and the vote on the Emergency Act is a confidence vote. If Trudeau lost, there is another election. One that I don’t think he thinks he can win. But also one the other parties are not ready to fight. So, silence from the opposition benches, since they have no plan either. The Conservatives don’t even have a leader right now, and no timeline to elect one.

All because Canadians were led to believe that there is a plan, when in fact there is none. What’s next? Jail time for dissent. Bank accounts not just frozen but seized, as the government needs the money to make up for everything they’ve spent. Canada is going down a dark path. With no endgame other than Trudeau exerting greater and greater control over Canadians’ lives and opinions, I fear where stimulus-response may lead.

Frozen Rubles in Occupied Canada

Back to the gym yesterday for real. We worked the machines, something we haven't done in months, and feel great. 

Every time we're about to finish book production we ask ourselves if we really need to read the hardcopy. Every time we read the hardcopy we are reminded why we need to read the hardcopy. This morning we found a major continuity problem in The Great Nuclear War of 1975. Major, but easily fixed with just a few words. That's why we read the hardcopy. [It never ceases to amaze me how little you listen to me, knobhead -Ed.]

This blog is seeing increased traffic from Canada. Wonder why? Thank you, Citizen of Canuckstan. We may have another Canuck ready to contribute to Stroock's Books. Who he is and where he is from we cannot reveal. Let's just say English may not be his first language. [Is he QuebecAnnon?-Ed] alright, busted. Get ready for the Montcalm beat. We're also working an Italian and Irish angle, or shall we say, Cavour and de Valeria

We've been working our contacts in Canada. These include sources within the Canadian Resistance, CanadaAnon and QubecAnon. The Canadian Resistance's long term strategy is two pronged. They'll be first and foremost a political entity, running candidates for office, getting spokesperson's on television, and staging anti-government protests. But the Canadian Resistance will also have a military wing which will work closely with the political infrastructure.

As we write this, our contacts within the Canadian Resistance tell us rebel command is setting up bases on the US side of the border. These will be staging areas for cross-border attacks into occupied Canada. Interestingly rebel command, from their stronghold deep within the Maine wilderness, isn't planning attacks into Ontario, they say. Rebel Command feel's the Maritime provinces would be the best place to begin. They're calling the effort Operation Newfie. 

One may wonder how the Canadian Resistance is paying for all of this. All we can say is that the Canadian Dollar conversion rate is very favorable to the Ruble right now...comrades. 

From the Foreign Desk: John A. MacDonald

Having too much fun

CANADA, Citizen of Canuckstan - The problem with using fear and intimidation is it becomes a habit. People were told first to be afraid of the virus, afraid of what it would do to our health care system and how it would be overwhelmed (it wasn’t). Then we were told to be afraid of anyone not wearing a mask, followed by anyone who isn’t vaccinated. Now the protesters are the ones we are supposed to be afraid of. Fear, fear, fear.

But as I’ve watched the trucker protests, I’ve noticed something fundamentally different. The truckers and the other protesters are....having fun. Not the cruel, mocking fun most leftists use today but genuine fun. Dance parties in the streets. Bouncy castles. Popcorn makers. And the latest one, a hot tub in the middle of the street. Kids and families with pets are seen everywhere. Yet politicians and media condemn them constantly. Children’s aid has threatened to take away the truckers’ children for....being at a protest. The elite are acting in a strange way. Or maybe they are simply weak and can’t figure out how to deal with these protesters.

Compare this with Antifa, Occupy Wall Street and CHOP. Violence was everywhere. Hundreds of police were injured and many killed. Billions of dollars of property damage. Rapes and assaults by the dozens. Yet the elite called the violence of left wing and anarchist groups “understandable” and they had to be given “room to protest”. The truckers receive no such room.

I think the media and the “powers that be” need the truckers to be violent. If they are largely peaceful, they can be ticketed, but it is hard to justify harsher methods. Especially with so many private journalists or just vloggers walking around the protest freely and filming pretty much anything. Antifa would never allow such a thing. Once the protesters are shown to be violent, then a radical and brutal crackdown can be justified. The problem is, other than some blindingly obvious false flag operations, there hasn’t been violence. We’ve heard that “healthcare workers have been threatened” but with no video – and everyone has a cell phone with video capabilities these days – it seems hard to credit.

What’s the next step? The powers that be still refuse to meet. I think there is a danger of a serious manufactured incident. The question is will the police really move in? The rank and file of the Ottawa police don’t seem inclined. The next few weeks will tell one way or the other.

Will Takes Stroock's Books International

Good morning Stroock's Books Commune.

Alert reader(s) may have noticed a second post last night from a Canadian known only as Citizen of Canuckstan. We are recruiting other foreigners as well and hope to make these overseas postings [Canada is in North America-Ed], a regular feature here.  Are you one of these people? Email us at wtstroock@yahoo.com. 

[How do we know these people are real? I mean, look at Qbi Wan-Ed]

Are you saying Qbi Wan is just an imaginary friend meant to mess with any feds who might be (and probably are) monitoring my comms and I just think the name Qbi Wan is hilarious?

[You really think the feds are reading your emails?-Ed]

They read Tucker's emails after he tried to get an interview with Putin, and I, you know, write for him too. 

[Tucker?-Ed.]

No, Putin.

We admit we're getting paranoid.

[Getting? Six months ago a black SUV pulled up to the house and you shouted, 'It's happening!' That nice young man delivered flowers-Ed.]

True.

[You checked the flowers for listening devises, didn't you?- Ed]

No comment.

In our research of the Kremlin [Again with the Russians?-Ed] we discovered that it's defended by a unit called The Kremlin Regiment. This is an ad-hoc force of soldiers who pass a rigorous test to join the regiment. During the Cold War they were very often combat vets. We're thinking we should give more space to this regiment and create a character to do so. Which is how scenes, books, entire series grow like weeds. We already have a couple of guys hanging around Lenin's Tomb wondering why choppers are approaching Red Square....

Which brings us to...Will Writes: One must avoid the urge to write about something just for the sake of showing off that one learned something cool. Tom Clancy did this, and it was one of the reasons his novels were seven, eight, nine hundred pages long. We did this in A Line Through the Desert. That Grafenwoehr gunnery scene is damn near unreadable, no? But it seemed so cool at the time. We found a guy who used to run the gunnery exercises, and a couple of guys were on the range the day Iraq invaded Kuwait. We even got our hands on physical copies of the gunnery tables. So what one reads there is the way it was.

What Will's Watching, or should we say, what the actual fuck? The Book of Boba Fett Chapter-6 was another episode of The Mandalorian with Luke and Baby Yoda thrown in. The Luke and Baby Yoda scenes were really blatant masturbatory fan service. 'Yoda once told me...' Did you at least get five bucks for that hand job? Jesus. BoBF is bad and Lucas Films knows it. 1/4

From the Foreign Desk: Sir John A. MacDonald

CANADA, Citizen of Canuckstan - “Silence is Violence” was the mantra of the Black Lives Matter protesters last year. For the BLM protest in Ottawa, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau came out and took a knee to show his support. When churches were being burned across Canada to protest a “recently found mass grave” on the grounds of a former residential school, Trudeau called the church burnings “understandable”. We have since learned that there may be no mass grave at all.

Trudeau instituted a vaccine mandate for all truckers crossing the US border into Canada. He has further said that he will impose a vaccine mandate for any truckers crossing provincial borders. Now, the truckers have come to Ottawa to protest. Trudeau tarred them as racists, white supremacists and every other left wing boogeyman you can think of, and refused to meet with them. So they have stayed for almost two weeks. Trudeau has fled the capital. The Ottawa police have admitted that the protesters are calling the shots. A raid to try and move them out Sunday night has pretty much failed. Ottawa city council wants to put together a class action lawsuit against the trucker protesters. Tow truck companies are refusing to tow the protesters vehicles. GoFundMe tried to seize their funds.

And this is spreading. Coutts, Alberta, a major crossing on the US-Canada border is blocked. The police have been unable to move them and people have breached police lines to join them. There have been trucker protests in Vancouver (the mayor has told them to protest and get out), Calgary, Edmonton, Regina, Winnipeg, Toronto, Sarnia, London (Ontario), Quebec City and Halifax. And those are only the places there have been some reports about. Farmers are joining.

I don’t think Trudeau will back down. He’s been made to look weak. This is a Prime Minister who simply cannot handle anyone disagreeing with him. It’s the way he’s been raised. So I think this will spread further. So far, it’s been largely peaceful. Air horns and honking are annoying but most protests are loud anyway. At this point the military is sitting things out and considering how far this has spread, it’s unlikely they could stop it anyway. 67 000 troops in the entire military, counting the Air Force and Navy. What will they do, try to put the protesters under the guns of HMCS Charlottetown? I’m not sure they could get it up the Ottawa river. There have been 4 arrests in Ottawa and apparently 2 of them were Ottawa citizens threatening the protesters. Compare that to Occupy Wall Street or the CHOP zone.

I hope this will spread the to the US. Get your convoy together sooner rather than later. Remind your neighbours that while silence is violence, air horns are anarchy.

Will's Good Idea for the Week of 2/6/22

This afternoon we're  gonna start boxing up our books, stacked randomly on the utility room floor after last summer's flood and subsequent basement purge. During the boxening we'll find our Russian/USSR books, enabling us to improve The Final Storm's SAS scene. We have 24 banker's boxes ready to go. It's a start.

Up in the land of the moose, our boy Pierre Poilievre, MP for Carleton, has announced he's running for leadership of the Cannuck Conservatives. Here's Poilievre nuking Justin and bouncing the rubble. Conservative Politics down here and up there isn't about policy anymore but the ability to retaliate, the willingness to say, 'No, your boss wears blackface! You're the racist!'

Our man on the ground up there thinks events are moving beyond Justin's ability to control or even influence them. One Canadian commentator we read, wish we could remember who, said that both sides are playing a game of chicken that neither can lose. Justin called the Freedom Truckers every kind of 'phobe' he could name. Now he can't move them, but he can't let them stay either. 

Exit question: will Justin turn Parliament Hill into Tiananmen Square? This blog is reminded of a wonderful scene in Cast a Giant shadow, where a British army officer threatens to open fire on hundreds of Jewish refugees that have just landed in Palestine. 'I guess now is when we find out if we're the bloody Nazi's or not,' says a young subaltern.

This blog admits to feeling some powerful ju-ju for our old Putin's War novel. We like the idea of a massive American task force (three carrier battle groups, a marine division, the 82nd Airborne on alert) showing up in the Western Pacific....and and!...A British led Commonwealth task force moving into the South China Sea. Lots of Aussies...Wonder what their target would be. Is a Russian/Chinese war unrealistic given the Putin-Xi Axis of Eurasia? Perhaps. Then again, Hitler did betray Stalin. 

Lots of great ideas, not enough time or energy.

To recap where we stand:

The Great Nuclear War of 1975: formatting, needs final read through.

The Great Salvation of 1976: needs print reading preparatory to going to the editor. 

World War 1990: The Weser: final draft almost done. One more month of work, this includes print reading.

World War 1990: The Final Storm: tonnes of work to do.

The decks will be cleared for the summer sneak in and a fresh project in the autumn. 

Canada: Blacked

Justin won 157 seats and will get to form a minority government. 

The Liberals won the battle for the Toronto suburbs.

Interestingly Scheer and his Conservatives won a greater percentage of the popular vote. We guess this means he should form the next government, right lefties?

Check out the Red/Blue divide. This is very, very ominous.

Stroock's Law did not apply, nor did it in 2015.

Oh Canada Day

We would be remiss if we didn't note that yesterday was Canada Day, or Dominion Day up north. 

Mark Steyn has some interesting thoughts.

Here in the Stroock Northern Strategic Direction we are a mere 200 miles from the border. Our liquor stores are inundated with Canadians who have surged across the border in search of emergency six packs as revelers from Halifax to Vancouver have exhausted the nation's supplies of Labatts and Molson.

It is said that Canadians are nice...and dull. Indeed they are. Years ago we read a 600 page history of Canada and we don't remember a damn thing about it. Which is fine. Dullness is a virtue. You know  a country that isn't dull? France. They're on their 5th Republic no, sixth? This blog can't keep track. 

Canada is a monument to 150 years of good governance. MacCleans*, to which we subscribed for a couple of years, put together a compendium and review of Canada's PMs They all seemed quietly competent through at least Diefenbaker. Pierre Trudeau was a great man in his own way. 'Just watch me.'  Brian Mulroney was always PM when I was a kid. Canada is a placid, well run place that can raise an army of a quarter of a million men for not one but two world wars.

I wouldn't mess with them. Just as the Golden State Warriors.

*See Steyn.

2543-Canada

Over at Small Dead Animals (PBUH) a discussion of the problems confronting Canada, and the possibility of breaking up.

This would probably happen if Quebec ever secedes. Fortunately for Canada Quebec has the most inept secessionist movement in human history.

Without Quebec the Maritime Provinces are separated from the rest of the country by a thousand miles. The Western Provinces are dominated by Ontario. We Suspect the later would join the United States no?

Albertans would make great Real Americans and we could rename the province North Texas.

Canadian Thoughts

So it's Canada Day.

Despite being from New York State* we've only been to Canada once, in 2008 with our wife and daughter. We felt the difference between Toronto and NYC was no greater than the difference between NYC and Philly.**

As Homer Simpson once said, 'Canada is easy to miss, tucked away down there.' Of course South Park's 'Blame Canada' and the traitor Moore's Canadian Bacon are so funny becuase the  notion of Canada being difficult or problematic is so ridiculous.

One can forget that Canada is another country. In 1993 we were reminded of this fact during a pivotal four game series in the Bronx between the New York Yankees and the Toronto Blue Jays.*** During 'Oh Canada' Yankees fans gave the infamous 'Bronx Cheer'. Mayor Giuliani apologized profusely to the mayor of Toronto and the next day legendary Yankee Stadium announcer, Bob Sheppard, gave the crowd a stern admonishment to be polite, these are Canadians.

Ten years later we went to the stadium to see the Yanks and Jays play. We sat out in the leftfield bleachers next to a nice couple come down from Toronto. They appreciated the organ guy's rendition of 'Oh Canada' and asked us, 'You have a good knowledge of the Yankees, eh? Has anyone ever hit a homer out of the park? We had a pleasant afternoon with our Canadian friends. Of course a few rows down a Bronx yahoo was shouting at the Toronto's pen, 'Blue Jays you suck!'

Anyway, with the post 9/11 rise of Mark Steyn we became increasingly aware of Canada. In 2003 we read a fascinating article by Steyn pointing out that at the end of World War Two, Canada had the third largest Allied army. In fact a Canadian army numbering nine divisions slogged across northern Europe. Steyn actually inspired us to write a short FYI style article about the Canadians in Europe. The Cannucks really made a name for themselves in the Great War with their four division attack on Vimy Ridge in 1917. 

One is not accustomed to thinking of the Canadians as a bellicose people, but they've kicked a lot of Kraut tail. Taliban too. They've also got the best damn war memorial we've ever seen:

As we have followed Steyn so have we followed Canadian politics, far more closely than any American should. The Gomery Scandal, the human rights commission, the parliamentary coup, Stephane Dion's do-over tape, Jake Layton's hockey arm pull....Rob Ford- the Canadian precursor to Trump. Over fifteen years we've watched the indifferent corruption of Chretien, the steady leadership of Stephen Harper and now Justin 'Trudeau'. Canada you don't ever again get to mock American presidents. 

So happy Canada Day. We'll conclude with words the afore mentioned M Steyn quoted just last night:

I see a long straight line athwart a continent. No chain of ports or deep-flowing river or a mountain range, but a line drawn by men upon a map nearly a century ago, accepted with a handshake and kept ever since. A boundary that divides two nations yet marks their friendly meeting ground: the 49th Parallel, the only undefended frontier in the world.

*Way down river, about half an hour north of the Bronx. Montreal was over 300 miles away. Still at the toll for the mighty Tappan Zee Bridge there used to be a sign reading, 'Canadian currency discounted 30 %' which seems awfully optimistic to us. {Actually, as of today one needs $1.26 Canadian to make a greenback-Ed.] Whatever.

**Despite deep family roots in the city, and having cheered for the Eagles during the Super Bowl becuase we love our wife, we hate Philadelphia and everything in it. We always rooted for Apollo Creed.

***Those are baseball teams, for all you World Cup addicted Europeans out there. 

Dead Dictators

For reason's we need not get into, I have followed Canadian politics for about fifteen years now.

This time has seen the remarkable rise of one Pierre Justin Trudeau. The alleged son of former PM, and architect of modern Canada, Pierre Trudeau. Ah Pierre, now there was a great man:

His 'son' is a moron:

Members of the Asian-Canadian community are demanding an apology from Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau, following his comments on Thursday expressing admiration for China's "basic dictatorship."

That's nothing. Via Small Dead Animals, checkout the official statement from the Prime Minister's office:

Good Christ.

let's take this to its logical conclusion:

-While controversial Pol Pot had visionary ideas on fighting urban sprawl.

-Say what you want about him, but thanks to Stalin there will never be overcrowding in Ukraine.

-Whatever Kim's other failings no one will ever be able to accuse North Korea of having an obesity crisis.

-Haile Mengitsu Mariam fought overcrowding in Eritrea.

-Though certain, ah....demographic groups were out of his favor, Hitler was one of the greatest dog enthusiasts of his time.

-While some found him controversial, Stalin was one of the most impressively mustached dictators of the 20th century.

-Sure Genghis Kahn killed millions, but think of the multi-cultural paradise he established in Samarkand.

-Hey, no Alexander the Great, no Hanuka, just saying.

Anywho...

This man-child, I swear I'm looking at Aston Kutcher sometimes, had risen improbably through Canadian politics, taking advantage of 'his' family name and the thin ranks of the Liberal Party decimated three times by the mild mannered Stephen Harper. He's never held a job.

Justin's mom, Margaret had an affair with Rolling Stones' guitarist Ron Woods. While Justin looks nothing like Pierre, there is a decent resemblance between Justin and Ron.

Not one goddamn word about President Trump, Canada. Not one goddamn word.