Lest you think the Justin Trudeau, our Prime Minister has even the minutest iota of importance at NATO, perhaps the ‘family’ photo will give you a hint as to where he stands, pardon the pun.
It took searching many, many pictures, almost with a microscope, to finally find him – at the extreme right, almost falling off the stage. The ultimate where’s Waldo.
It is obvious he was kept as far away from Trump as was physically possible. It is also obvious that he is the least important person in that group. Literally if he moved a few inches he would have fallen off the stage.
One cannot help but compare him to Stephen Harper, who commanded the respect of all the other world leaders. When that ‘family’ photo was taken, Harper was just slightly left of centre in the second row.
Here’s an old adage that fits very well here: You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time. Nobody at NATO was fooled by a pretty face and good hair.
If anyone has been driving around Montreal lately, it is very obvious that there is no such thing as a planning committee when it comes to road construction. In fact, we would venture a guess that the word planning does not exist in the vocabulary of anyone associated with road construction – in English or French.
Arrows indicating detours are met, at the end of said detour, with yet another arrow back in the same direction. In our neighbourhood, two of the three exit streets have been closed at the same time. And on the streets that are open, well, the geniuses are painting fresh white lines.
Valerie Plante, Montreal’s mayor is blissfully unaware of the havoc her engineers are causing. That’s because she’s very busy saving the world by using her bicycle. The mantra of the more aggressive cyclists is… if you drive a car, you are considered environment’s enemy number one and any inconvenience is warranted.
As we have said many times here, Plante’s arrogance is pretty well equal to Coderre’s, the former mayor.
Yesterday was the semi-final game of the soccer World Cup. To say that fans are out of their minds would be the understatement of the year. They lose their minds. Well, yesterday, English fans definitely lost their minds when England lost too, of all countries, Croatia. Seriously?
Instead of rioting because their team won, they rioted because their team lost. Fans were punching and hitting each other and policemen, throwing themselves into canals and climbing lamp posts. What would they have done if England had won?
Incredible. Malala Yousafzai has turned 21. We will jog your memory: At age 11, she went from an average Pakistani child living under Taliban rule to an outspoken advocate for girls’ education. By 15, she’d faced an assassination attempt that she was lucky to survive. And by 17, she’d become the youngest person to win a Nobel Peace Prize. One very brave young woman.
Here’s something to shake you up a bit: Earlier today, Toronto police confirmed officials had received an “unconfirmed, uncorroborated piece of information” that there’s a “potential risk to public safety” in and around the CN Tower. Seems there was another car rammer threatening people who just want to go about their lives.
Starbucks, ever the eager-beaver company trying to portray itself as a corporation that is sensitive to environmental concerns, jumped on the bandwagon with those advocating the removal of plastic straws. Ahh, but there’s a bit of an issue.
The replacements Starbucks plans to use for the plastic straws – nitro lid – are comprised of more plastic than Starbucks’ current lid/straw combination. Blanche, maybe they will close all their stores again, this time to brainstorm for an afternoon to try to come up with a solution. Wait. We have one. Paper straws. Remember those? They do exist and if they don’t, Starbucks has the capacity to create them. Blanche, what a genius you are.
Good Shabbos We’ll talk…